Technology,
Technology, Technology. Where do I start? Well we all know that
things are going really fast and whilst it’s quite neat it can also
be damaging to our economy.
The Upside:
Today’s
day in age we all want our lives to be more easier. I
remember when I was going for job interviews in a big city I’d have
to print out a map and the job add
so I know what I am going to say and a sheet that shows my journey
planner with public transport just
to stay organized.
Everything I did ended up on
paper. Now you got maps, public transport information and a notepad
all in one device: Our Smartphones.
I remember how sometimes it
was easy to get a bit lost. But how much harder it was to find ways
to physically get back home in the spur of the moment. I find it
really handy and useful that now in terms of transport that this is
possible and that it gives me the confidence to be able to go out to
an area that I didn’t know with a pretty quick back up plan.
When
I was growing up Smart Phones didn’t have a CPU like computers
have. They were slow and our data usage limits were small and in the
megabytes, maybe less.
Now these big companies are trying to make it possible that our
batteries last longer, that
our devices run much faster
and that they are more
efficient. This is one of
the other
neat parts
about it. It helps
us do useful things faster
like make emergency calls
better.
The Downside:
Everywhere I look
there is always someone using their smartphones and tablets. As soon
as I get out of the movie theater the first thing everybody does is
turn their phones on. It’s like it has become more important than
the real things around them. I was watching the news one afternoon
and they were showing a video of this man sitting on his boat. He was
on his phone possibly on social media and whilst he was doing this a
big giant whale comes up out of the water and dives back down next to
his boat. The man was completely unaware of this ever happening and
just kept on doing whatever he was doing on his phone. The problem
with all this is that we are so distracted because we take these
things for granted. I personally wouldn’t be on my phone at a time
like that!
Just like everyone
else I personally can’t keep up with the pace of technology. Every
3 months where is something new and that something new can cost in
the big thousands. It makes me wonder if big companies also really
care about making our lives easier or just want to make a profit or
both.
The catch 22.
Then I see on an
Australian news talk show this morning that they are trying to
implement one of those automatic 24/7 kiosks. But this is a catch 22
too. You see you got people who give up their time to work night
shift to do those sort of jobs and possibly get paid penalty rates
after hours. You gotta hand it to them. Whilst this automated kiosk
is useful in terms of keeping workers safe they are also taking the
jobs of those workers. This is where our economy would fail.
Here in Australia we
have self serve check outs at our supermarkets/stores. Handy for
customer’s independence and the convenience of having those when no
other check out person is open. But puts more workers out of their
position as check out people. I like using the manned check outs
because its nice to build rapport with the staff and it is more
humane to help them stay in work. I don’t want our unemployment
rate to go up as a result of this technology otherwise we’d have
more and more poor people.
I am not sure how to
conclude this because reasons why technology is good and bad keep on
coming up. Technology is just endless now. You can’t just end it
and with it it starts with what we might need and find useful. Some
of us don’t need technology at all. I hope these big companies find
a way to make technology and humans more adaptable together so that
somehow they can co exist ad that everybody kind of wins. What do I
know? I am just a civilian!
