I try and keep an open mind with new ideas, especially as some of those ideas are actually old ideas in a new context.

I find it useful to ask what human need various technologies fulfil.  Is it something fundamental or something akin to that exercise equipment you promised yourself you would use, other than as a strange shaped clothes hanger?
If I think I have identified the fundamental need then I start to dig into the underlying principles of the new technology.  I find that understanding the principles allows me to pick up the specifics of how a particular technology implements those principles reasonably quickly.  If I see a lot of activity and different solutions all trying to address a single issue then that is an indicator to me that this is a subject worth studying.

As to the pace of change, I find it difficult to assess.  To me it is like a sink hole suddenly appearing.  It may look like a radical change but in reality a lot of change has been going on unnoticed and the sink hole is the sudden exposure of it.  I concede that it is a real bummer if that change happens underneath your feet.