Isn’t it time that we do away with the sentence, “He/She is doing computer work?” It made sense 20 years ago, when everyone was spending inordinate amounts of time trying to get their computers to work at all. But now we use our computers to actually accomplish an amazing variety of specific tasks, such as:
Writing a novel
Reading magazines.
Composing Music or mixing down a multi-part composition
Attending a lecture.
Writing letters to friends.
Buying or selling securities.
Using voice recognition software.
Researching government corruption.
Preparing for a speech.
Participating in a video-conference
Designing brochures.
Shopping for a new coat or a new house.
Processing photos.
Engaging in public advocacy.
Publishing an article.
Attending a college class.
I was an adult before most of this could be done on a home computere (I was born in 1956), but I still hear people saying, as shorthand, “She’s doing computer work,” as though people only do one kind of thing while sitting in front of a computer. Time to strike that kind of antiquated talk from our language, right?
We have the same sort of problem when people describe the career of someone as “He/she works with computers.” Maybe 20 years ago it meant something specific enough, but it doesn’t mean much of anything these days. In fact, it’s hard to think of any job that doesn’t involve the use of computers.
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