The technological revolution is well under way, and scientific innovation is growing exponentially. Some people are in the fast lane on the information highway, some are like grannies in the slow lane and a few are broken down in a rest area with a talkative trucker named Nathan … but we’re all on the road to the future.

The most important tool of the information age is, arguably, the computer. I predict that it won’t be long before personal computers are in charge of most of our non-organic daily functions.

The digitalization of many different media and a growing standardization of computer operating systems, in conjunction with the growth of data bases and satellite technology, could make it possible to balance the checkbook, write to your relatives in France and download music, films, books and art all at the click of a mouse … for a price.

But what happens to the people left behind? Will there be a technological and informational elite class made up of mostly booming, educated, wealthy, white men? Or will private industry, in an attempt to get their advertising messages to the ever-growing ranks of poor and slovenly consumers, help to get everybody on the information hay-ride to “html.”

I don’t know the answer. But I do know that we are in a dynamic, volatile time, and if we poke while the iron is hot, so to speak, there is great potential to create an all-inclusive global information society. As long as we keep the government out of it.

I’m no libertarian, but nothing screws up a good thing better than a bunch of tight-sphinctered, bureaucratic politicians taking the fun out of everything. The world is literally at our fingertips and we should take advantage of this great gift.

Get smart, don’t delay. Talk to your nerdy computer friends and find out what you need to get networked.

Take a trip to Best-Buy and invest in a quality computer with all the accouterments (modem, CD-ROM, the whole bit). Whether Mac or Windows-95, computers today are fast, user friendly and multi-media. Take advantage of the technological brainstorm that’s available to us.

Don’t fear it. “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”

Author’s note: A part of this article was based on the film “Star Trek: First Contact.”