Friday, 8 April 2016

Technology, our Frenemy



                                                         Technology, our Frenemy
It is a fact that we are all technology driven whether we like it or not. It has become impossible to live a life where we are not touched by technology. We are grateful to technology that has brought a qualitative change in our life, for the better. Things get done fast, be it communication, entertainment studies, industrialization, food industry, social efforts, business, education, comfort, luxury, efficiency etc. There is no need to expatiate on the benefits of technology ; it is as pointless as carrying coals to Newcastle.
But for the septuagenarians and the septua+ genarians – who have never made use of the new technological fancies during the best part of their lives, this change is tedious and irksome.  Things have changed so fast in the last few years that today they feel handicapped because of their ignorance. Even those like me with a perfunctory understanding of technology find it difficult to cope with the demands it makes on our patience and time. As an illustration ,let me talk about the service providers.  Most of our landline and mobile phones are on the autopilot system. If we have a complaint to lodge we have to listen to the answering machine that reels out in a droning recorded voice a long list of what to expect if we dial 1, 2, 3,. After we identify the number that suits our complaint, the machine on the other end drones a number as our complaint number, followed by soothing assurance that it will be attended to. Smug and satisfied at the technological speed and assistance, we wait for the miracle to happen. But when the miracle does not happen and the complaint remains unresolved, we go back to the service provider with the given complaint number. But what we go through is sheer madness. We go through the same 1,2, 3… drill recorded on answering machine,  not knowing what to do with the complaint number on hand. Meantime the machine is prompt to hand out a new complaint number. Since there is no operator at the other end, one wonders what use are these complaint numbers! This auto answering system is in place in all the offices meant to help citizens. For us. The oldies, the earlier system was far better - to be answered by a moronic voice of a ‘babu’ at his desk, whose speech is interspersed with the gulping of tea and the chewing of pan- than this  disembodied voice of an inanimate machine.  It is no doubt a great facility for the ‘babu’ who is always resentful of any disturbance to his main activities of endless tea drinking, samosa eating, sharing an assortment of homemade lunch with colleagues lovingly sent  by their wives at home. But for the customer, it is a harrowing exercise in patience- an exercise that paradoxically shoots high our blood pressure.
             Technology has spurted the love for environment in the babudom. There is no need for them to type out payment Bills, write down the address and mail them to the customers. The frequent gratuitous messages on our mobiles asking us to contribute to a paperless world and thereby save the trees have given the “babus” huge relief from their quotidian clerical chores listed above. The result is, the customer is the one who suffers if he lacks a mercurial memory to remember the deadline by which date payment has to be made, remember all the service agencies to whom payments are due,  the amount to be paid in each case and keep a track of all the payments done as no receipt is sent except through sms on the mobiles or through  e-mails. What is still more daunting is the sms one receives as a reminder to make the payment after one had made it and this throws us into a tizzy and one has to look at all the messages received on the mobile as  confirmation of the payment made. Often when I look at my snail mail box, I look back with nostalgia and despair as there was always a bill before payment and an acknowledgement letter after payment.
The third problem with technology is it plans obsolescence. It designs and creates products  with the specific intention of providing them a short shelf life so that they become  unfashionable after that determined span of time. The speed with which the radio has been replaced by  transistor, cassette recorder by tape recorder, then by compact audio discs, IPad, IPad Air2,  IPad Mini4 , the IPad Pro series… is mind boggling. We have seen the progressive change from VCR to VHS to DVD and other digital formats, each one rendering its previous avatar obsolescent.  It is the same with mobile phones with wireless technologies that have moved from analog to digital from 1G to 2G and then on to more speedier technologies -3G,4G and 4GLTE(Long term evolution). 5G is expected soon. Then there is XLTE which is a bandwidth charger with a minimum of double the bandwidth of 4G LTE and is available anywhere the AWS spectrum is initiated. Every new discovery means to common salaried peopleand pensioners like me a big hole in the pocket. The same story of planned obsolescence is seen in the evolution of computers to laptops to I-pads and I-phones. Planned obsolescence is defined in the French Act on the Energy Transition as any scheme through which a product has "its life intentionally reduced from its conception, limiting its usage period for reasons of economic model."  Famous Poet Thoreau’s far sighted comment about technology as “improved means to an unimproved endsays it all.  
Technology has certainly speeded up communication. Everyone is just a mobile call away. One connects with people seamlessly. But the flipside of this toy gadget in our hands is its incredible memory  that adversely affects human memory. The mobile phones have a mobile memory as it can flash any number with the press of the keyboard to blunt our memory. We do not need to remember any phone number or know the multiplication tables or even  remember birthdays and other important days. The phone keeps a tab on all these matters making human memory a thing of the past.
 The newest baby in the field of communication technology is the social media and the  instant transmission of selfies shared on social networking services such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Many sociologists have expressed apprehension about selfies – an apprehension that is felt by many others also- that they have the potential to promote porn culture, revenge porn, “ where ex-lovers post sexually explicit photographs or nude selfies to exact revenge or humiliate their former lovers”(Andrew Keen). While social media allows us swift sharing of information and provides us with highly interactive platforms, the negative impacts regarding privacy issues, information overload and Internet fraud cannot be minimized. The abusive and crude language amounting to online violence is a dehumanizing factor of the social media. It has also made users hide behind their electronic devices and get hooked to virtual conversation, making personal contact and personal relationships irrelevant. Social media has changed man from being a social being to a lone wolf, a solitudinarian,  almost a misanthrope if not a social misfit. A lot of time is wasted by young people on social media with the misconception that they are well connected with a host of people, most of whom they have never met nor spoken to. While a controlled and monitored social media will be ideal, it treads the danger zone of arresting privacy and individual liberty for free expression. Social media has proved to be dangerous as in the name of individual liberty it allows rampant abuse  of that freedom with the use of uncivilized and uncultured language.
Technology is definitely the single cause for the betterment of our lives, freeing us from daily drudgery. It helps us gain time –at least an hour’s gain if not more. The question that is never asked is “save time for what?” At the risk of uttering youth blasphemy, I would venture to say that our young men and women- leave aside the minuscule minority who use the time profitably engaged  in activities involving research, discovery, sports and creativity- the vast majority do not know what to do with the extra time available. We see them hanging out in the malls, in cinema theatres and cafes falsely affirming that they are enjoying life. 
Technology creates as well destroys human potential. While admitting its enormous reach to cater to all segments of society,   we have to factor in the negatives- the loss of privacy, the loss of personal relationships, the loss of contentment, loss of memory sharpness, physical atrophy, aloneness  and the rise of materialism and greed for fancy consumer goods.  Technology has the capacity for human development as also for human attrition. It is the Bhasmasura of the modern times. It is in our hands to use it thoughtfully. Otherwise this Bhasmasura will reduce human potential to ashes. It is our frenemy and we have to guard ourselves against a seemingly good friend that doubles up as our rival. We have to ensure that Man and technology are partners in strategic coopetition( competition and cooperation) and value the relationship as mutually complementary.















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