What's a Computer?

If many of you are like me, you've seen this commercial about 3 billion time on TV. Every single time I roll my eyes at the question Apple leaves us with, "what's a computer?".

I'm not sure the intended reaction Apple was seeking from the public. It could have been intended for us to sit back and think, on our own free time, "hmmm what IS a computer, could there be more to the 1's and 0's?" leaving the viewer to research what qualifies a device as a computer. Perhaps Apple was looking to shake things up with its audience. After a statement like that (not to mention. where are her parents??), Apple knew the kind of push back they could receive for such a bold statement. After-all, who are they to redefine the word computer? Looking closer, we see that Apple was trying to make a statement about how a post-pc world may be closer than we think. While this is a cute assumption, and maybe we are moving to a more mobile friendly world, we cannot forget what a computer actually is, how it goes beyond just a PC, and why this question is so frustrating to tech/all people like me.

To start we need to define the word 'computer' means:

com·put·er -  an electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program.

Okay, so a computer is something that processes or stores data. A few examples of this would be your Windows PC, a Macbook, your iPhone, your smart watch, and yes, even and iPad Pro. The list could go on, but let's think about this, we interact with maybe 4 different devices a day, and all of these are - by definition - a computer.

Remember when you were a kid, fumbling around with Microsoft PowerPoint in elementary school, or learning how to use Google Images for the first time? These are my earliest memories with computers. Young or old you can remember what it was like to use a computer 'back then'. Yes, the technical landscape has changed since then, there have been things like tablets and such introduced, but we still know what computers are and how much they mean to us. The world wouldn't be the same without computers. It would take 10x longer to receive our order at McDonald's, there would be no online banking, and not to mention we wouldn't have the ability to Google things at will. The naive question, 'what's a computer?' negates the fact that not only is she using a computer, but also that computers are what got her there in the first place.

If you are concerned that we might live in a day and age where children don't know what computers are, have no fear. 'Computers' (or in Apple world PCs) are used every day by billions of people everyday to carry out basic tasks from writing a paper to crunching hard numbers. Children and adults alike are consciously aware of computers, and we shall never forget our roots.