Technology is revolutionizing nearly every single aspect of everyday life, the Internet of Things is making our homes, workplace, car and environment ever more smart and connected; it is estimated that by 2020, there will be 50 billion devices connected.
In fact, Mark Zuckerberg released a fun fact just the other day: There are as many people using Facebook today as there was world population just 100 years ago.
Technology is taking over.
As I write this on my tablet computer, connected to a 76Mbps internet connection, browsing information from around the globe, getting updates every few seconds and catching up with people from a very dim and distant past, I wonder just how many people could or would do without that sort of technology?
Do not confuse that question with that of a Luddite.
I understand and appreciate technology and all that it does for us, I also understand that there is an element of intrusion, lack of privacy and of the whole ‘1984 Big Brother’ thing.
Data Mining
Perhaps a better way of thinking about it would be that I like the technology, but I don’t like the algorithms and data mining that goes hand-in-hand with that technology, yet I know it’s an essential part of that very technology.
Surely, I cannot be the only person that longs for holidays, away from it all, without internet connection or phone signal?
Only to be frustrated when I am away that I can’t use my phone or browse the internet?
And therein lies the problem; we are so used to having that technology available to us, our lives are geared toward it, nearly everything that we do in our daily life is influenced or shaped by technology.
Another thought provoking snippet; there are people old enough to be at work and earning a living that have never known life without internet, more than that though, they have probably never had the anticipation of waiting for a web page to load; waiting for each individual line of a picture to build up into a full picture over five minutes.
I don’t wish a return to ‘the good old days’, but just sometimes, I long for less invasion of my privacy, to meet a policeman rather than a camera, to feel a book rather than a screen, to pick-up a fountain pen rather than a stylus … to have that holiday without mobile technology.
But in any of those examples, do the old ways work better than the new?
Image Source: https://cielo24.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/innovative-technology.jpeg