When is it all too much?

I find myself wondering when, in the career world, where all the technical and economic changes will make people say "enough"?

First, technically.  Committed but rational technophile that I am, it's getting to be a pain to keep up with everything.  New web services come up to make other web services easier to use.  Reliable job search sites fades, new ones come up.  Different income models are experimented with, different job search tools are tried.  I, a person who loves technology, am finding he has to make research plans and set goals just to keep up.

Then, there's the economy and the job scene.  I find myself scrambling to keep up with news feeds and information to understand whats going on.  I live in California, more a country to itself than a state in level of complexity, so you can guess things are kind of crazy right now with our budget – thus I find myself in love with the state and the computer industry, but unsure of the economic future.  I could consider moving, but that just makes things more crazy – and I like it here.

So we're in a time where the economy doesn't make sense, and the technology of our lives requires a persona study program.  I start wondering when people will get fed up with this if things don't change or at least slow down.

In the realm of the economy, I see people remaining unemployed, taking breaks, or just taking whatever comes along for the time being.  I also suspect some people are enging more simplicity – I know I am (saving money and worrying less about ephemra helps, as does taking pleasure in budgeting as a sort of strategy game).  I do get concerned that people will get so exhausted that they will just give up in this economy, and they'll fall far behind in their lives – and not recover.

In the realm of technology, this is tough.  People don't want to fall behind technically, but I do run into people who refuse to jump onto the social media bandwagon, invest in more advanced job search toosl, etc.  There IS a lot to keep up on.  I suspect however with technology this just increases the market for simpler tools – social media integrators, online classes, etc.  Someone will make a profit on this exhaustion – though I do expect to see more and more backlash against technologies.

Does this essay have a point?  Well, that people are tired of all the changes and I see a few possible trends.  It's something I want to make people more aware of – and perhaps hear any comments.

– Steven Savage