Sticky Licorice Lands in a High-Tech World

Published January 9, 1986. For nearly two years now I have had an IBM Personal Computer in my office at home. Not only have I been doing my Desert News columns on the IBM-PC but also most of my university work and other writing as well.

Just a few minutes ago I realized it was time to work on my weekly column. So into my office I went and turned on the computer. It was at that point I found it.

As I sat down to begin my work, I saw a sticky piece of half-eaten red licorice stuck on the keyboard of the computer. It didn’t take me long to figure out how it got there. Tammy, our 16-year-old daughter, recently received a box of red licorice as a gift. And Brandon, our 18-month-old son, knows where the licorice is supposedly hidden.

As almost everyone knows, children at that age are messy. I just don’t mean diaper messy. They are messy messy. Brandon is no exception. For instance, when he is finished eating in his high chair, he has a signal. With one sweep of his arm, he clears the deck. Dirty dishes, left-over food and all. He is also very willing to share his food with Lucky, our black cat. In fact he is so willing, he will often let the cat eat out of his bowl – at the same time he is picking over his food. Brandon also likes chewing gum, for a while at least. After that, he puts it anywhere that is convenient. Like inside my black, Sunday shoes.

Then there is the red licorice. Brandon likes red licorice for a while. Then he tires of it. And like the half-chewed gum, the sticky, half-eaten licorice must be disposed of. On the keyboard of Dad’s IBM Personal Computer must have been a logical place. So there it was.

As I sat down and tried to pry off the sticky licorice. I tried to be philosophical about the whole matter. Perhaps there was a symbol, a hidden message of a child’s sticky candy stuck to a very expensive computer.

Then it came to me. Perhaps I was experiencing in visual form what John Naisbitt called High Tech/High Touch. In his book “Megatrends,” Naisbitt notes that soon there will be electronic cottages, places where people will both work (mostly with computers) and also reside with their families.

By becoming more technological in our approach to life, there will be a counter-movement in the human relations area. The author notes, “What happens is that whenever new technology is introduced into society, there must be a counterbalancing human response – that is high touch – or the technology is rejected. The more high tech, the more high touch.”

Brandon’s sticky red licorice was a significant reminder that children, and people, and relationships still belong in a world that is becoming very sophisticated in the technical realm. But the High Touch, the human relations factor, seems to be lagging behind.

Hopefully no one will ever be able to develop a computer program to rear children. How could they? What machine, with its matrix of wiring and double sides, doubled density disks, could ever figure children out? How could a computer determine why an 18-month-old child would want to eat out of the same bowl as a cat? And how could a machine ever be more creative in suggesting how or where a child could dispose of chewed-up gum or sticky licorice?

Because of the High Tech/High Touch phenomena, Naisbitt predicts, “I don’t think many of us will choose to work at home in our electronic cottages. Very few people will be willing to stay home all of the time and tap our messages to the office. People will want to go to the office.”

And now I know why High Tech is for the office. That is where technology must advance and prevail.

But High Touch must be maintained at home. Someone still needs to foster relationships with family members, and particularly little boys . . . who love sticky red licorice.