Technology

Technology - Love it or hate it?

Of all the technological gadgets with which we surround ourselves some are undoubtedly more useful than others. Some are nice to have, while others are must haves. Some have changed our lives for ever, in that going back to a time before them would probably be unthinkable.

I guess mobile phones and computers fall into this category and therein lies the problem. These very gadgets, while speeding up communication often isolate us from people and social interaction. They shrink the world and bring it directly to us via audio or visual media; but this same technology can also frustrate the hell out of us when, either it goes wrong or fails to do what we want it to do; the later usually caused by that classic human problem called 'finger trouble'.

Some technology has earned a reputation for being unacceptably intrusive. Google's street view has to be currently top of this list.

Apart from the mobile phones and computers, which are somewhat asexual, male and female views on the usefulness of technology is often very different. Women will say that they couldn't live without a washing machine while men are more likely to highlight a cordless drill or flat screen TV as must haves.

Some basically good ideas receive a very bad press and never really achieve their potential; in car SatNavs being a case in point. Some achieve success out of all proportion to their purpose and owe it more to advertising. The Wii in home activity machines being a good example.

That's not to say that I'm anti technology, on the contrary, I'm all for it, it's just that when my computer crashes or won't connect to the Internet, when my phone battery won't hold enough charge to get through an average weekend I sometimes wonder if they are actually worth all the bother.

Online banking seems to divide opinion. Some people are all for it, others don't trust it and will have nothing to do with it. Online ordering seems to generate the same feelings.

Finally there's the technology that we all universally hate. Speed camera's and auto phone menu's have to top this list. Speed camera's because most of us think they are more about money making than safety and phone menu's because most of us would just like to speak to a person not a machine!

Love it or hate technology in all its varying forms is here to stay. This, and it pains me to have to say it, is a case if you can't fight it, you might as well learn about it, use that which is useful and skirt around the rest.

Mike (Online Easy) Baker