How Good is Technology?

By Cheryl Gevry
Featured Rightgrrl December 1999
cgevry@map.com
March 8, 1999

The age of computer wizardry has given the world many advantages. Today we can do practically everything from our home: shop, bank, research, and chat without ever needing to leave the comfort of our chair. It has allowed us to become more efficient, enabled us to have more free time, and even made the hassle of dealing with crowds a thing of the past. Without much thought, one would say that the advancement of technology has had a positive impact on society.

Do we ever consider the negative impact these advancements have? Take shopping for instance - there was a time when the thrill of the season was to see the decorations at the local store and run into people we know and wish them well. Internet shopping was responsible for twenty-five percent of sales this holiday season. What about Suzy who used to have a job at the mall, but because of Internet shoppers the national chain downsized, leaving Suzy without a job? How about the fear of credit card fraud? What about the ability to wish someone who has been busting her tail for the other seventy-five percent of the public a happy holiday?

Banking has become such an easy thing. Just a computer and a modem give us the ability to transfer funds and check our balances. The newest technological advance is check writing! Have we truly become so lazy that we can't spend fifteen minutes writing out checks?

Researching anything has supposedly become so simple. Just search on the subject and you get one of three million choices containing those words to find what you are actually looking for. Couldn't we find it more efficiently at the local library?

Chatting is the best thing. First, we parents have to worry about our young, unsupervised children who enter chat rooms and find themselves in trouble with Moe the molester. Then there is the great thrill and ease of being able to insult a person you'll never meet, because the only thing between him and you is the Internet connection. I hear death threats are real popular this year.

All in all, I suppose we do have to expect some downsides to technological advances. However, I was thinking more along the lines of high electric bills and overuse of phone lines instead of what we've got - a society of people that gets lazier and ruder by the moment!

This article copyright © 1999 by Cheryl Gevry, and may not be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of its author. All rights reserved.