Do you guys think that, once we make a peaceful contact with an alien civilization and they teach us their technological ways, we'll get a huge paradigm shift and our technological knowledge will get a huge leap?
Think about new CPU's, new ways of computing, new algorithms, new hardware, new materials that are not available on this planet, new peripherals (forget mouse and keyboard), a new and universal programming language that is elastic, and so on.
Have you ever thought about that?