Diane Clifton, 334/844-5117

AU PROF TO TALK TO AUALL MEETING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY

AUBURN -- Houston Carr, professor of management in Auburn University's College of Business, will address a March 17 meeting of the AU Academy of Lifelong Learners on the topic of "Technology in Our Lives."

Carr will speak at 10 a.m., in the auditorium of the AU Hotel and Dixon Conference Center.

AUALL is a member of the Elderhostel Institute Network, an international association of more than 275 Institutes for Learning in Retirement affiliated with Elderhostel Inc. Most of the members of AUALL are of retirement age, and Carr says most of them will have had to deal with the advances in technology over the past 60 years.

"They've lived from the (tethered) telephone to wireless communications," he said

These technological advances will be familiar to the audience, says Carr, adding, "They may not like it, though."

"The tendency is that you get saturated with change, not technology so much as change," said Carr. "As people get older, they tend not to like it so much."

But despite their aversion to technology, people get pulled in by what Carr calls "killers apps." These are technology applications that "really get your attention" -- including e-mail.

Parents can keep in touch with distant children and grandchildren via e-mail, which is inexpensive and people can "get out of their house electronically.

"If there's a killer app, people will put up with technology," said Carr, who added that e-mail will be the bait that will attract the older age group.

"Talking on the telephone used to be an important event," he said. "Remember when you used to go to the phone and sit and talk? You may have had a special chair to sit in. If it was long distance, you talked fast because it was expensive. Now, you have three cordless phones in the house, a cell phone on your person, and you talk long distance all the time because it isn't expensive anymore. My how times have changed, all since the Depression."

Although wireless communication seems to be taking over, Carr doesn't think it will become a paperless world anytime soon.

"Books will be the last to go," said Carr, because people like to hold them in their hands. And Carr believes "newspapers will hang on."

Carr also credits one invention -- the microwave oven -- with aiding the health of senior citizens and other's for whom cooking with conventional means might be hazardous.

"The microwave has made more difference, healthwise, than anything we've done," said Carr, explaining that with nutritious frozen food and microwave oven safety, seniors' diets have improved.

Carr's other topics will include the evolution of the television, from antenna on the roof to TiVo, and computers and the internet.

Carr, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, holds two master's degrees from Texas Christian University and a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin.

After graduating from VMI, he spent three years in the Air Force and joined General Dynamics in time for the company's F-111 aircraft program. After spending 21 years with the aerospace company, he joined the faculty of the University of Georgia in 1984 and came to Auburn University in 1989. Since its organization in 1990, AUALL has enjoyed more than a decade of success and growth, from a handful of members to almost 250. It is supported by annual membership fees. For more information on AUALL or future study groups, call the AU Outreach Program Office at 334/ 844-5165.

CONTACT: Outreach Program Office, 334/ 844-5165; or Carr, 334/844-6522.