As the world seems to shrink, so, too, do our skills

By CLAUDIA SMITH BRINSON

Columnist

The new, tiny, expensive world - this world that never stops ticking and turning, faxing and instant messaging - keeps shrinking, keeps speeding up.

For Americans, who possess remarkably little interest in how others live, who possess a surety the American way is the only way, this will be a big adjustment.

Not the speed, really, since we pride ourselves in our rushing about, our multi-tasking, phone to ear while driving.

But the shrinking, the consequences of no longer being as big and important on the scene as we expect and are accustomed to, no longer isolated by oceans to cross in days of travel.

My imagination fails me when I try to imagine this world my children will navigate in adulthood.

Already, they walk and drive with cell phones to their ears, my son in touch with a high-school girlfriend hundreds of miles away, my daughter keeping up with friends scattered about the nation.

I envision them constantly engaged in parties of one: my child plus a piece of technology. In just a month, they'll be able to watch television via cell phone - if they can remove it from their ears. About 300 daily video clips, two to five minutes long, will provide news, music videos and slices of entertainment programs.

RedTacton, a technology from a Japanese company, will allow my kids to send data over their skin. A RedTacton transmitter uses the body's electrical field to send data, so my kids could trade music files with friends via a handshake, transfer digital pictures from the camera they're holding by just touching the computer.

But broadband networks aren't the sole reason this itty-bitty world is itty-bitty.

Some of our past sense of expanse had to do with the contrast between our very great power and the desperate needs of undeveloped counties, seemingly so different, so very far away.

In 2003, China surpbutted the United States in its receipt of foreign direct investment. China received $53 billion, compared to the United States' $40 billion, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.

Little hints are everywhere that more is to come: Amusingly or ironically, China is the leading exporter of Christmas items. By 2006, China will be the second largest market for PC's, surpbutting the United States.

And then there's India. We all joke about making a flight reservation or placing a catalogue order and realizing the impeccable English on the line belongs to a clerk in New Delhi.

Big American law firms are opening facilities in India where lawyers and clerks scan, code and index documents.

This tax year, Indian accounting firms will process more than 400,000 American tax returns.

"But these are just superficial signs of India's capabilities. Quietly but with breathtaking speed, India and its millions of world-clbutt engineering, business and medical graduates are becoming enmeshed in America's New Economy in ways most of us barely imagine."

That warning comes from Business Week, which estimates there are more information-technology engineers in Bangalore than Silicon Valley.

Then there's oil.

In the 1970s, a policy-driven fuel shortage resulted in our imposing fuel-efficiency standards for our cars. Those standards resulted in the improvement of fuel efficiency by 7.6 miles a gallon.

But we didn't stick to it. So we find ourselves needing Persian Gulf oil and creating Persian Gulf wars. Oil becomes harder to come by while developing nations demand more oil. Shortages and high prices will become the norm.

Not so long ago, we couldn't imagine paying more than a dollar for a gallon of gasoline; now the average price is moving past $2.25 a gallon, according to AAA.

The tiny world gets tinier as developing nations' needs grow and our refusal to acknowledge reality remains - like the Dodge Ram SRT10 at nine miles to the gallon, the Hummer H2 at 13 miles to the gallon in the city.

The tiny world gets tinier as our nation becomes bilingual - despite our lack of interest in teaching children languages early in school. Because of immigration, about 47 million Americans speak another language at home, 28 million of them Spanish; 2 million more, Chinese, according to the Census Bureau.

In "The World Is Flat," Thomas L. Friedman warns that Americans have an ambition gap; a numbers gap, with too few engineers and scientists; and an education gap, with outsourcing based not only on lower wages elsewhere but better-send workers elsewhere.

A foreign-affairs columnist for The New York Times and a promoter of globalization, Friedman uses Infosys Technologies to illustrate his points. The video conference room of the Bangalore star of software and outsourcing is used to collect people all over the world via wall-size flat-screen TV. The TV is hemmed by eight clocks: U.S. West, U.S. East, GMT, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia.

My children have not been educated for this world. When my son wanted a high-tech education in computer graphics a few years ago, neither Clemson nor USC had the technology nor the teachers. Too expensive, we were told.

Neither of my children speaks a foreign language. Each took the pitiful minimum required in high school and college, meaning they can greet someone and ask directions - maybe.

Although they're naturally adept at fixing computer glitches, taking and altering digital photographs and rescuing me from techno-phobia stupidity, they can't compete with Bangalore, despite college degrees from large public universities.

Where's the touchpad that will fix that?