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 end” says 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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