Technology and the False Sense of Perfection

I think we’ve all assumed at one point or another that technology is making many aspects of life a lot better. When I say better I mean we assume that we are more capable of things now, we are more advanced, we are more productive and well better in an overall sense that we’re striving for perfection and getting closer to it. I’m not trying to deny that advances in technology have had positive effects on our ways of life. What I want to show is how these conveniences are inconvenient at times.

If you’ve ever had a debit card, credit card, digital cable, wireless internet, a wifi connection, a wireless phone plan (and I could go on) or anything similar there is a good chance you have faced more than a hand full of inconveniences. And what I find interesting is that after we’ve faced these situations we play them off as normal.

I’m sure that there have been more than a few of you who had to go to your bank to get a new debit or credit card because someone was trying to access your account through a fraudulent manner. Don’t get me wrong, its great that the bank notifies me but now I have to stop everything to go to the bank and take care of it. You might tell me to stop complaining but the fact of the matter is we use these cards so that we don’t have to constantly go to the bank. It makes you think why we ever stopped thinking that cash is king.

The same issues can be applied to advanced communications. Have you ever sent a text message and it wasn’t received, had a “call failed”, watched tv and had the digital cable (or satellite) box freeze up or used the wifi and suddenly it went down, talk about ruining your day, well just for a moment. It’s definitely silly but we’ve all felt helpless in these instances especially when we think about how far technology has come along. Imagine not being able to watch tv, email or use your smartphone for a few days, some of us would feel lost and out of touch. What’s even more frustrating is that we pay a lot more for these services than we ever did.

For us in the younger generation, it seems we are willing to pay just to stay up to pace with what’s going on. We accept the fact that if there is a problem that problem will get fixed and we move on. But compared to the ways of the old we are all paying a lot more for basic smartphone plans than home phone and internet plans combined. The same can be said for any number of the issues mentioned above. In an age of advancement, we clearly face advanced issues that we are literally “paying” for. Every year a given household will payout out thousands of dollars just for digital cable, wireless internet and smartphone plans combined (and I dare not include our debit and credit card costs).

As a human race, we’ve made considerable progress and even though technology has helped us in many ways, it is certainly not perfect. It has allowed us to adapt methods we use in life to better suit us. I just figured that if all of us are paying for services that are suppose to make something more convenient for us, shouldn’t we at least be guaranteed not to receive the inconveniences of it.

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