Opinion Forever learning By Scott Hards	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
永遠に学び続ける 筆者はパソコンこそ、世紀の大発明だと確信している。 だが、説明書を読み、ネットの情報から学ぶ手間を惜しめば、 パソコンを使いこなせず、優れた機能と時間が無駄になるのだ。

When I was in middle school 25 years ago, my social studies teacher asked the class one day to name what they thought was the most important invention in history. Hands shot up. Electricity, the airplane and television were among the candidates that we blurted out, but to each of these, our teacher shook his head. After a few minutes of this, he said, "None of you will ever name it, so I might as well just tell you. It's the printing press."

A stunned silence fell over the classroom. The rather dull printing press had never crossed our minds. But when our teacher explained how it had made possible the low-cost distribution of news, knowledge and opinion to the public at large (rather than just nobility), and how this had drastically improved human life and even helped bring about democracy, I was persuaded to agree with him.

But 25 years later, I no longer think the printing press holds the No. 1 spot on the list of the most important inventions. I have no doubt in my mind that the top spot is now held by the personal computer; in particular, a personal computer attached to the Internet. That invention has completely changed my life.

Whole volumes can and have been written on all the amazing things made possible by a computer and the Internet, so I won't go into detail here. Suffice it to say that the combination is like a magic wand that, if waved properly, can conjure up all sorts of wonderful stuff. So that's why it's really stunning to me that so many people, even though they've been given a magic wand and all its power, don't even try to read the owner's manual.

Recognizing that my computer is the most powerful thing ever, and wanting to exploit that power, I try to learn as much about it as I can. Every morning, I read the websites of the New York Times and other papers, but I also spend time reading four websites devoted to news and information about Apple Macintosh. I get updates about the latest programs, tricks and tips, troubleshooting techniques and more.

Why don't more people bother to do this? Very few people around me, even if they use computers every day, spend time learning about their computers on the Web, reading how-to books, or studying the manuals. Yet this inaction costs them so much! They don't know about great new programs that are available (often for free!). They don't know how to solve even the most minor of problems. And worse, they don't know the best ways to use the programs they have, often causing them to waste huge amounts of time. And ultimately, they need to turn to people like myself (now wasting two people's time) in order to learn how to accomplish something, or solve a problem.

I'm not in school anymore, but virtually every day for the rest of my life, I plan on studying about the most powerful thing in the world: that thin, silver-colored rectangle sitting on my desk. Given the awesome things it makes possible, anything less would be an incredible disservice to my own life and future.

(531 words)