And this isn’t about that robot movie with Will Smith. This is about the day to day drain technology is having on your life and the problems it is creating or can create. And it is not about the Facebook scandals or problems either.
I wanted to write this days ago so trying to recreate my thoughts, yet even my first thoughts were a hodgepodge of examples of why you life is worse now than it use to be. Sure in some respects technology still makes some aspects of your life more efficient especially at work, yet overall how much benefit are you receiving versus cost to you.
Oh, you say I receive bonuses for using companies apps. True, yet do you think they are giving something away for free. You are benefiting corporations by using their apps. They are training you to behave in the ways they want you to behave.
Or my word processor program helps me greatly with my letters and emails. Are you sure? Most people do not use half the features available to them, yet you paid handsomely for that program or your company did. Maybe a few people are word geniuses, yet most of us only touch the service. How much benefit are you achieving?
And the same goes for all the office software on your computer. How well do you know your functions on your spreadsheet. Some in your office do, but the majority sitting around at a computer would be hard pressed to use most of what is on their computer on any given day. And this is just the surface of waste of technology.
Where it is really hurting you, you do not see. For example there are companies that make software to run your work applications. This is proprietary programs that these companies tout will help various entities, yet some of these programs pull from other companies programs and there are layers the end user doesn’t see and probably doesn’t know exist. Then one day a company decides to stop supporting a function. Now the company that sold your company this wonderful program has to scramble to figure out a replacement for the underlying program they were using to make the program your company bought work. And by the way, your company has to figure out the work around till this is accomplished.
Or going back to the waste of technology where your desktop has so much going on and you barely use half of it, imagine when the company that sold you that proprietary program has put so many functions into it they no longer can control it. Then lo and behold there is an update to your system one night and the entire program goes haywire. You and your work are now at the mercy of enormous amounts of program glitches with no end in sight.
And some days it appears you spend more time going through the front door trying to log on to your personal accounts than hackers spend sneaking in the back door stealing all your information. How many times do you have to solve some puzzle or enter follow up information when you are just trying to accomplish one task on the computer? I swear I had one of those I am not a robot programs make me solve five or more puzzles before it let me in. Why? I was trying to access an existing account of my ______! So what gives?
There was a time when technology did ramp up productivity and efficiency, but have we crossed that point where new enhancements do not benefit the great majority.
Sure you love your new phone and it’s wonderful camera, but how much do you use? Outside of better selfies, was it worth buying it when your current phone is barely a year or two old. Who benefits? Not your pocket book and really how bad was that previous camera?
And cars have become a nightmare. “Back in the day” the average person could do minor repairs to their car with no problems. Replacing various parts just took a hour to two unless you were rebuilding the engine, now about the only part you can replace is the battery. And since so much of the car’s operations are tied to computer chips then what happens if the repair industry starts losing the workers trained on managing the codes in your car. And isn’t it wonderful that you can use your key fob and not stick a key in an ignition, but wait then you are away from home and the dashboard lights up with a message saying the battery is low in your key fob and the car won’t start. Eventually it does, but how were you to know the battery was too low. There was no message until it was almost too late. Imagine being out late far from home and that happens. So what was so difficult about sticking your key in the ignition in the first place?
And then there is the camera on your laptop or phone. Yes for the pandemic it helped so many work from home, attend meetings and generally keep up with people they couldn’t see for the moment. Yet ,did you know the camera on your laptop or phone can be hacked? And it always seems weird that your phone has the answer to the question you were just discussing with a friend or worse an ad comes up for what you just asked for, coincident?
And give any of us paranoid people a moment and we will tell you how all the technological horrors you see in movies could actually happen.
And I could go on, you could add examples and all this is the tip of the iceberg of how more and more technology controls your life at so many levels. Starting with the simple over reach of desktop tools to the mind games and training corporations are using to get you to behave to their benefit to the complete shut down of systems if one program goes down that is tied to so many others or if an update goes south. And of course there is the recent Facebook debacle showing us right in our face, oops maybe I didn’t need all this after all.
We do not need robots killing us, we are doing a great job of it ourselves with this over reliance on what is in front of us every day. Maybe not overtly, but day by day, little by little we are losing who we are as people and the slow whittling down of humanity goes on.
I am not touting to rid ourselves of technology, but to take a step back and determine how much do we really need. Once we know how much we need then maybe we can be more practical and efficient with its use again.
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