Technology is a catch 22.

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!