Getting to know technology after 25 years in prison

Technology is developing so fast that it’s easy to lag behind - but imagine the situation of a person who leaves prison after 25 years in prison, writes The Verge. Answering a question on the Quora website, former prisoner Michael Santos tried to explain what it was like to see and use modern devices live for the first time. According to him, he read about technologies while in prison, but that didn’t really prepare him for their direct use.

Even general terminology proved difficult to understand. “I asked my wife what a browser is?” He writes, “And when she described it as a program for accessing the Internet, I answered her with an empty look.” However, since his release in August, Santos has managed to get twitterand even his own website , where he sells a book about his experience in prison. Under the cut translation of his story on Quora.

When I went to jail in 1987, Motorola produced large gray mobile phones - I had one. People called it brick. It was possible to make and receive calls from him, but there were no SMS at that time.



I also had a pager, but he could only transmit numbers, as I recall. I had an IBM computer with a DOS operating system with 40 megabytes of memory, but I was not very versed in it. I was told that it is very cool.



I connected my computer to an Epson dot matrix printer, and I remember how perforated paper was fed through a system that constantly had problems. It was a lot of trouble.



Technology has changed a lot over the 25 years of my life. I read a lot during the conclusion, but reading about technology is like reading about printing. No matter how much I read, I could not understand the power of modern technology until I started using them. What power, I did not even understand the language of technology. For example, I never understood what people mean when they talk about the “browser”. I asked my wife what a browser is, and when she described it as a program for accessing the Internet, I answered her with an empty look.

“But I thought the browser was a small text box at the top of the screen, where I type what I want to find on Google.”
 
“No, honey,” she replied. “This is the address bar.”

I spent more than 25 years in prison and was not free for another full five months, so maybe others can understand my ignorance in technology. I can accept that I can’t comprehend the volume of basic information right now, but given all that I have to learn, I’m not sure that I will ever understand everything I need to know. I have no idea what a “server” is, and I don’t know much about how to make my content available to those who need it. Honestly, technology is not the only area that makes me feel like I am living in curved time, but I will write separately about those areas of my ignorance.

As for technology, this is a real problem, because I present technology as a central component of the business that I want to create. I believe that it is my responsibility or duty to help others understand the prisons, the people they contain, and the strategies for growing in custody so as to help people gain the values, skills and resources that lead to success. Technologies can really help me succeed, but since I don’t understand how to use them effectively, I’m a little lost in this world.



Before I was released from prison, I thought a lot about technology strategy. My wife used Microsoft products, but everything I read indicated that the learning curve for Apple products is much faster. On the day she took me, she handed me the iPhone 4S. During my first week at large, we bought a MacBook Pro and an iMac. I was hoping all of them would work easily with each other. But since my wife was not familiar with Apple products, she insisted that I download Microsoft products on them so that she could help me when I had problems. I immediately had a lot of problems with simple tasks, such as email and synchronizing all my computers. It was also difficult for me to remember all the passwords that she created for me. I proved to her that we should use only one password, but she spoke of the danger of identity theft. Since I met many people in prison who were serving sentences for identity theft, I believe that my wife is right.

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