Yesterday, March 11, marked 2 events that are remotely related but signifies a lot of things according to me. First one, Ipad2 was released and the second one, a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan and created vast devastation. The former looks to be a potentially pleasant one. But it just shows the dominating powers of one person who has created a whole new market for which there was just no need for it and potentialy converted it to a bare essential. There was a day when people used their intuition, direction sense and written directions to reach a place. Now people can't do without a GPS device. There was even a day when people used to keep their time for meeting. but nowadays, just text them you will be late eventhough most of the cases you could have made it in time but still chose to use the luxury of text messaging to get delayed. Obviously there are real benefits to these devices in case of emergencies, but in the process we are creating long term fatalities by not letting the human brain to evolve. Our attention has been diverted from trying a hand calculation to downloading a easy calculator app into your idevice. As we relinquish our basic skills in favor of simple automation, we are not quite aware what we are losing in the long run. When a few people have their way around and show you paradise even when things are in a real bad shape, there is no way we could take stock of these. Same way no "experts" could predict the sub-prime crisis and the high profile bankruptcy of giant companies but eventually came like a Tsunami that created havoc in Japan today.
It would be unethical (and maybe plagiarism in US) if I failed to mention the thought process above to Thomas L Freidman in his book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" who has likened the recent market crash to the climate change issues world is soon going to face. It is very hard to decide what technology is good. I feel that convenience should not be the sole motive for the adoption of a technology. People should feel the need for it. The massive growth in the handheld devices are a cause of concern. On the one hand it may seem to revive some parts of economy but in the hindsight it is potentially creating a non-recoverable eco-system. Massive use of energy and materials for the production of these devices and not enough efforts given to their safe disposal. People just bother everything that happens in between. In some sense the recent market crash has given us some precedence that things can go terribly wrong when we are made to feel - All is Well or not even made to feel.
It would be unethical (and maybe plagiarism in US) if I failed to mention the thought process above to Thomas L Freidman in his book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" who has likened the recent market crash to the climate change issues world is soon going to face. It is very hard to decide what technology is good. I feel that convenience should not be the sole motive for the adoption of a technology. People should feel the need for it. The massive growth in the handheld devices are a cause of concern. On the one hand it may seem to revive some parts of economy but in the hindsight it is potentially creating a non-recoverable eco-system. Massive use of energy and materials for the production of these devices and not enough efforts given to their safe disposal. People just bother everything that happens in between. In some sense the recent market crash has given us some precedence that things can go terribly wrong when we are made to feel - All is Well or not even made to feel.
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