But to live like this, without being able to enjoy many of the advantages that the world offers us, things that are made available to us to enjoy a better quality of life, and that will help us with the challenges of the future, is very sad. Although the opposite may seem to be true, today’s society is largely ignorant of technology. Our young people are mere consumers; they use what’s given to them, what’s convenient, what’s easy in the technological world, but they don’t want to research, to develop, to invest the time to face the challenges that this ecosystem offers them. Older people sometimes feel proud, or resigned: “I don’t know anything about technology”.

We need to turn all this around and recapture the spirit of the Renaissance, when it seemed that everything was yet to be discovered.

The emergence of smartphones has been an absolute revolution

In our pockets, we carry a computer, a source of entertainment, a communications system, and our work or studies, all within a tiny device that, of course, we cannot do without. It helps us solve countless problems, reminds us of our doctor’s appointment, lets us know when it’s time for our vaccinations, or we can watch the end of a series that was on yesterday if we fell asleep before it was over. It seems that we’re all huge experts because we know how to install and uninstall applications, do all our banking, or book a holiday trip.

But this isn’t the case. There is a gap, in absolutely all age groups, with many people being reluctant to learn about and take advantage of technology, or who are even embarrassed to confess that they would like to send a Bizum, or make a doctor’s appointment on their mobile phone, but they don’t know how.

I’m not going to be the one to say what our young people should do. They should study whatever they want, but last year in the European Union almost one million positions related to STEM careers could not be filled. These are studies, university-level or otherwise, that have to do with Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics.

If we really had the most technological young generation, logic dictates that they would opt for these types of studies, especially when everything indicates that they would be able to find jobs with them before finishing them. But if we look at the demand, there are fewer and fewer students in these courses of studies, and every day we see fewer and fewer students in secondary education who are interested in the technological sphere. Young women have few female role models in the world of science and technology, and those that do exist aren’t as renowned as their male counterparts. Nor do they choose to participate massively in such studies.

Years ago, it was taught as just another subject, and today it’s taken for granted that everyone knows how to use a computer.

We’re doing something wrong in our schools

But being able to use a word processing programme, create a PowerPoint, or access an online lesson doesn’t constitute computer literacy on the part of students, or on that of teachers. Technology’s currently a subject, or an extracurricular activity, but this shouldn’t be the case.

Technology has to be applied in a cross-cutting way at all the academic stages and in all subjects. There’s a fantastic example of a teacher explaining history via Twitter.

Each pupil is a prominent figure from, for example, the French Revolution, and they send messages on the timeline as events unfold. Without realising it, they learn dates and events, all thanks to a technological tool that many thought was only useful for criticising or insulting people.

The big pending revolution in the classroom, and in our homes, is robotics. Most people don’t know that there exists a small electronic board, called the Arduino,which is a computer the size of a credit card. For less than 50 euros we can have a kit with a series of sensors to automate our home. Modern DIY should not be just about being able to assemble a Superstrugen piece of furniture, but rather knowing the thousands of possibilities that technology gives us.

I’m not talking about knowing how to program and develop a system that makes our doors automatic, or that tells us how much power each of our household appliances is using. I’d be satisfied if we could learn that there exists the alternative of becoming technological “makers”, and finally going from “I don’t know what I don’t know” to “now I know what I don’t know”.

From “I don’t know what I don’t know” to “now I know what I don’t know”

We complain about technology because we’ve been forced to adapt to it. Dinosaurs would have been saved if, instead of trying to adapt, someone had explained to them that, if they embraced the new world, instead of clinging to the old one, they might now be the centre of everything. The same thing happens with technology, as companies force us to accept their tools and applications, and tell us that we have to get used to using them.

When someone adopts them in their environment, as their own, and uses their full capabilities, they see how things change, productivity increases, and communication at work becomes possible.

The pandemic has shown us that, thanks to technology, we were able to continue working at many companies, but not all of them were ready, because they’d put off their digital transformation until next year. Having computers doesn’t mean that our company is ready. In the end they’re just something else at the office. What’s important is to know what the limits are in terms of security, which applications we can use to improve efficiency and, above all, to work in the Cloud.

What a concept! Just when we thought our company had its feet firmly on the ground, now we tell them that the future of work is in the Cloud.

But you’re not aware that you've fallen for the Internet's big lie. You didn't read even one of the terms of the agreement, whose Point 7.14 specifies that they will use all the data they're going to acquire on you to try to sell you something, or have someone sell it to you.

We click on “accept”, and that we’ve read the terms of service, and now we’ve installed the latest application, which is free, too

Nobody ever told you what your information is for, whether because you never had the time to look into it, or you never found a place where you could read all these things. So, in the end you just let it all flow by, tiptoeing through this exciting world of technology.