You have computer at home? You have a laptop? You have a tablet or a smart phone? You have access to internet? Answer to all these questions would be certainly ‘yes’ for majority of us. I own all these things buddy. Owning all this stuff is not my concern of debate over an issue. My intention is not to reveal someone’s status in the society but my concern is something else which is a sensitive issue.
Let me tell you a true short story. I was working as a software developer in a company. Everything was awesome there. The environment, the team everything was good. Everything was comfortable there. After few months we were relocated to another building. The furniture was of different style there, although those were too office chairs. After few weeks I felt some problem in my back. For few days I ignored, but gradually the condition turned horrible. I realized the chair was the main culprit. Although the culprit wasn’t punished rather I had undergone a month long treatment with a physiotherapist. Was that chair only responsible for my ill health?
So what is the moral of the story? We human beings would always pay for our carelessness. I was careless as I ignored my health. With the advancement in technology in this scientific era we have put side all other things and we are paying or would pay in coming future.
We have invented technology for our assistance so that we can save our precious time and could deliver effective productivity. We have increased our productivity but have ruined many other things. And it would cost us too much in many different forms like our environment, our health, our culture and almost every perspective of our life. Let us find out how we are damaging our self and our own planet.
Environment
It is very easy for us to utilize our natural resources, but it is very difficult to get them back in the specified time span. Take an example of deforestation. It takes almost ten years for a plant to become a tree. If we maintain same ratio of forestation and deforestation then a day would come when our forests would remain nowhere on the earth. Should we turn so discriminate to the place where we live and breathe?
I saw in a recent program on TV in which they had locked a person in an air tight glass chamber hardly 10 x 10 x 10 feet i.e. 1000 square feet. What do you guess for how long he could have survived without oxygen? They kept him packed for 48 hours and he survived. And it was not magic. The chamber was having hundreds of plants inside which generated ample oxygen which we have generally in our surroundings. Wake up! We are trapping our self.
Health
We either remain stick to our cell phone, or remain in front of computer for hours. As a result we invite diseases like we had never experienced before. Regular prolonged sitting causes problems like slipped disc, survical. Regular digging our eyes deep on the computer screen weakens our eyesight or may cause migraine. Too much use of keyboard and mouse may lead to wrist pain which is also termed as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. These are some diseases that are outcome of the advanced technology that have become essential aspect of our daily routine. Excessive use of cell phone is also harmful for all of us especially for children as mobiles emit electromagnetic radiation.
Culture and Language
Use of gadgets, cell phones, and internet is vulnerable for our culture. What you are talking about man? It might seem rubbish but to some extent it is true and we all know that. Barriers and boundaries have been broken, everything is exposed on internet. We call it a modern society, isn’t it a harassment of our culture and cultural values. Our morals are lost somewhere in the technology blowout. Who would control the loss of our moral values? We know where we stand but we wish to remain silent on the issue. Take an example of the language we often use now days over SMS and chat. LOL, HRU, M F9, TC etc. We have developed a new language of acronyms that is sufficient to express our thoughts and emoticons have replaced our facial expressions and emotions. After 15 to 20 years we would harvest a crop of youngsters who would face difficulty to write down a correct syntactical and grammatical sentence. Then we would come across institutes in future teaching ‘Write Correct English’ as we see today ‘Spoken English’.
So, is the new technology managing or deteriorating our life style? Every coin has two sides. Without bad there is nothing good. It is all in our hands how we use our technology. We know very well what we need to do to save our self, our environment, our culture and our planet. We just need to learn the way to use our technology and maintain balance at par in all the aspects which revolve rounds its periphery. Take care, enjoy technology and make it your friend.