Chris’s Rant On Technology Not Working Right!
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 8:49AM I have personally and professional recently noticed something interesting about technology; something which comes from a unique prospective of my third decade in the Technology Field and the places I see technology applied in my and other people’s lives, “Technology Does Not Work A Good Deal of the Time!”. I know that is somewhat of an extreme statement for a technology consultant to make, but sadly it’s true. I will elaborate on why in the following paragraphs.
We spend a substantial amount of time fixing our technology products and services, just making sure it’s working “correctly”, it’s “patched”, more and more “updates” need to be applied, and all the while tech support itself does not know what is going on a good deal of the time. More reliable service is just a “upgrade, fix, update, or phone call] away. The insidious thing about all this is that we have become hooked on all the amazing new features: how we can be more productive, connected, and over stimulated all at the same time. We’re addicted to something which is unstable more and more, we cannot live without email, texting, cell phones, internet, GPS, and yet the question is are we really on some technology laden auto-pilot in which we rely less and less on ourselves and more and more on faulty buggy technology to run our life’s. All I can say is half the time I speak with people we are all in the process of “getting support” or “resolving a technology issue”. At the same time Technology can be great too and allows us many freedoms we never had, but I feel it’s only healthy if it’s used as a tool and not an “addiction”.
And there is always another upgrade. This is another thing about technology; “If it’s not broken then upgrade it!” seems to be the industry mantra. It always seems like all the hardware and software companies want us to upgrade every year so they can meet their “numbers” for the investors. While some new technology can be very exciting and helpful in creating a better quality of life, I’m not sure we need it or can afford a “new one” every year.
I wish as a technology consultant that instead of doing upgrades every year to keep trying to sell me something that upgrades would coincide with important new features which are better tested out ahead of time and which immediately lead to a better/happier quality of life either professionally or personally. I don’t like paying companies to be their field tester so the next version of their product will actually “work” which I am then given the privilege to pay for and the whole “upgrade” cycle starts again. Hardware and software have become much more affordable [I remember when I had my first PC in the late 1980’s and it was a really big deal], yet technology many times represents a substantial purchase for many of us and if our car needed upgrading every thousand miles we would return it to the dealership as defective and is an often used example of the what we put up with when it comes to “modern” technology.
I think the way to change things for the better is for us all to have some non-technology down time every day, even while we are being exposed to even greater amounts of new technology, and for us all to ask ourselves every day what technologies really works for us and which ones are just taking up more of our band width.
What do you think?
- Chris
