Last week, as my boss mentioned the new
Smart Art graphics in power point presentations is making most
presentations look the same. I had to agree with him, in the name of
improving productivity the dependency on tooling is only dulling our
creativity and other mental faculties.
Number Crunching - Thanks to
caculators and excel sheets, even basic arthimetic has become
impossible, both shop keepers and customers alike are clueless
without technology.
Birthday Reminders – There was
once a time, I could remember the birthdays of all my close friends
and family members, then with the advent of social networks facebook
and orkut, the dependency on social networks to remind us of
birthdays leading to a large gap in memory.
Spelling – the most disturbing
dependency I have fallen prey to is the spell check options in MS
Word or even on google search. Now there are words for which I dont
ever know the right spelling, just depend on auto corrections. My
biggest fear now, writing an written exam on pen and paper.
Limiting Social Interactions –
This is the most disturbing
dependency which we have grown so fond of , when we could meet face
to face, we have moved to cell phone conversations, from cell phone
conversations, we have moved to text messenging and most uncapable to
making human contact anymore.
Tablets / Smartphone fixation
- Steve Jobs proudly claimed the iPad is the definitive post PC
device and it is the end of the desktops and laptops. Although I
agree desktops and laptops are clunky devices but typing on a glass
surface is even more difficult. It is scientifically proven, devices
like tablets and smartphones are more suited for passive consumption
rather than comfortably typing or creating inputs.
Although technology is definitely taking
humanity ahead, there are several de-humanising and limiting effects
as well so that mental crutches we have grown to depend on needs to be reduced if not eliminated altogether.
So true! Completely agree with you. We're becoming slaves to these things, when it should be the other way round. Was watching i-robot yesterday and the thought struck that what would happen if these machines really decided to take over our lives and teach us to live!
ReplyDeleteEsp, your point about limiting social interactions is so true!
W.H.Davies wrote 'Leisure' sometime in 1911. Imagine what he would have to say if he saw us spending the li'l time we have for ourselves, in a virtual world!
Humans need detoxification from technology gadgets seriously even I am an addict sometimes.
ReplyDeleteGood post G! Its very true that these techie stuffs have made our lives so dependent that we hardly remember anybody's phone numbers(which we did when we had only land-line services)
ReplyDeleteGrammar check is another worst thing.It has completely killed our sense of knowing and enjoying the beauty of a language.
And lastly, we hardly get to see people out of their houses to play, for instance, a game of badminton or cricket or a Frisbee for that matter,(which was the then time-pass for our neighbor youngsters)Its only online games 24*7! It is annoying at times, that these guys have time for online stuff but not for meeting up. Strange!
Good one Ganesh! Come to think of it, all our ppts do look a lot similar these days:)
ReplyDelete@ Nithin - Thanks a lot for your comment :)
ReplyDelete@ Rashmi - Thanks ! yes the current generation is moving to the matrix world - connected intimately with machines rather than interact in the real world.
the lack of physical activity, electronic equipment fixation ( mobile, tablet, laptops ) and unhealthy food is making social misfits and obese individuals. a scary future indeed
This happens in every generation and will continue to happen.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing Charlie Chaplin movies and the way he made fun of technology as then, the common man had difficulty understanding it.
Later on IBM used those ideas in their commercials to promote computers.
I just like to look at this as evolution.