When anyone stops for a moment and starts looking at the number of technological advances in recent years/decades, it will become apparent that they seem to be popping into view faster and faster. My theory is that because advances in technology are cumulative, in an unhindered environment they will happen with a “snowball” effect. In other words, it builds momentum upon itself. For example, the series of technological advances that made the Internet possible, are now used to further accelerate technology by using the Internet itself as a communication, knowledge-sharing, collaboration tool. Think how much faster technological progress can be achieved now thanks to tools like the Internet, and compare it to 150 years ago. You get the idea. Snowball. This is true not only in computer technology, but in technology in general. However, to stay on-subject in regards the subject I usually write about, we’ll look at this phenomenon as it relates to computers.

So down to the practical side of it, what does this mean for the average computer user? In other words, is there a point to all this babbling? Well, hopefully, there is. One of the things it means is that your computer equipment is getting older faster, relatively speaking. This has two consequences: one is your computer devalues faster. The other one however is more positive: The not-so-new, yet way ahead of an “old” (over 3 years old) computer, is cheaper than before. And capable of fulfilling your basic computing needs without a problem.

Nowadays there is a breakthrough in computer technology about every 6 months. Based on that, a computer that is 3 years old is 6 breakthroughs behind. You get the idea. So when you have a computer that is older than that (3 years), and it’s not working properly, make sure to evaluate if repairing whatever might be wrong with it is worth it, because after a few hours of tech support/repairing, it’s going to be more economical to buy a new one than to repair the old one. And if you were to go with the repair option, at the end of it you’d still have an old (albeit repaired) computer. This would not be that way without the above current phenomena on the speed of technological advances. So wanted to make sure you were aware of all this.