Introduction
Humans are obsessed with technology. The fact that there are more people with mobile phones (5.1 billion) than people with toothbrushes (4.2 billion) (according to Hubspot) shows how much we love technology.
Those statistics do not surprise me. Technology is not going anywhere. Technology is not an option. It is a fundamental part of our life. It simplified our life. It made the earth a smaller place.
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There is no argument against “Has technology made our life more comfortable?”. Without digital technology and digital tools, I may not be able to study at the university, especially with the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19. It is fascinating how technology helped us to adapt to a new world of social distancing.
I remember in my younger years how taking a photo was painful. First, you have to have a bulky camera. And you can’t guarantee the quality of the photos. You just have to wait until the film is developed at the camera shop.
And what about listening to music? Those cassette tapes and their terrible sound qualities and how easily they damage and break.
Another example is making a phone call. Imagine a world with no mobile phone. I can’t even imagine living without my mobile phone for a few hours.
And can we imagine going back in time before the invention of the automobile? The comfort of traveling around so quickly and leisure has become an aspect of our modern life.
Those are just a few examples of how technology made our lives easier.
Has technology made our lives more comfortable?
Forty-five years ago Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft. They had the bold idea of a computer on every desk and in every home (CNN Business ).
A lot of people thought they were crazy and out of their minds and it was impossible to achieve their vision.
But today, I look around in my house and there is a laptop for every family member. The number of laptops and computers is more than family members.
But what are the conveniences that we get from owning a computer? I use my laptop daily to do my master's degree and study, to connect with friends and family via emails and video chat, to browse the internet, to find new recipes on YouTube, and to upload personal photos to our cloud storage. These activities would be impossible to achieve without having the technology. I can chat with any person in any country around the world any time I want. I can buy items from overseas that do not exist in my local shopping center. I can read the news, watch kitten videos, and like celebrity posts on Instagram. I can do all that without leaving my bedroom.
Someone said, “Modern problems require modern solutions”. We live in a modern world and our problems are evolving at the same rate with technology. I will give an example. One of our cats is a compulsive overeating cat. She always steals the other cat’s food. Recently we’ve been advised by the vet to put her on a weight loss program. It was hard to prevent her from stealing the food. After researching the matter, we found out there is a device called Microchip Pet Feeder. It is designed for multi-pet households to ensure that pets are unable to steal from others. The feeder uses revolutionary technology to read the cat microchip and open the food bowl to the right pet only. We bought two feeders, one for each cat. It took a few days to get the cats to be comfortable to use it but it solved the issue with stealing food. The problem with household pets may seem trivial but it is amazing how technology and innovation can be useful in those trivial situations.
In the past, talking to electronic devices was something out of Sci-Fi movies and shows such as Star Trek or R2D2 in Star Wars. But now we have Alexa sitting right on the shelf in our living room waiting for our commands.
Voice recognition devices are everywhere nowadays. Recently, Amazon Alexa (simply known as Alexa) has been added to our household gadgets. It is the virtual assistant AI (Wikipedia) capable of voice interaction with us. We can ask Alexa all sorts of questions. Rather than using the browser to search for answers I simply say “Alexa what is 360 Fahrenheit in Celsius?” or “What is 2800 divided by 9” or “Alexa what is the temperature today?”.
We can stream music, ask math questions, ask her to tell us jokes, play audiobooks, weather temperature, traffic status in certain areas before traveling, and so on.
Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant are human new smart devices. They are in homes, offices, hotels, cars. They are everywhere.
According to Daria Evdokimova, CEO & Co-founder of VoiceOps
“In the next 5-10 years, it’s highly unlikely machine-driven speech-to-text won’t surpass human transcription in both accuracy and speed, just given the current pace of development. We’re not there yet, but we will be shortly. That speed of development will also increase over the next few years as we continue to capture more voice data through in-home and mobile virtual assistant apps like Siri and Alexa.”
The journey of Virtual Assistant AI is just at the beginning. We are still far from seeing the real potential of this technology in our world.
One aspect of modern technology is called Deep Learning. Machines can learn new features from raw information or inputs. We already experience the outcome of this technology with self-driving cars or autonomous vehicles. Those vehicles will revolutionize how people use their cars shortly. They are supposed to operate fully without the interaction of humans. The concept of autonomous cars might seem dangerous to some people. The technology is still in progress and those new types of cars are still not ready to be operating on our roads. But I am sure soon we will start to see them on the road.
Imagine you own a self-driving car, the car will drive you to the train station or work in the morning and it drive itself back home and park itself in the garage. How fantastic is that? Who needs to find parking in some backstreet near the station or work?
Your smart self-driving car could generate income for you while you are not using it by working as a taxi for other commuters. I like to drive my car and I enjoy long drives. But when I am over 70 I think self-driving cars will add extra comfort and independence to my life.
Our reliance on technology can be found in every corner of our world. Inside and outside our homes.
We enjoyed listening to the radio stations while we drove our cars. We extended our life expectancy with all the modern medical equipment and medicine. And where would we be without the television? Every night we have dinner while we watch our favorite shows on Netflix or Prime or Stan. And how can I travel without airplanes? We can be on the other side of the world within a few hours instead of a few months. How is that not comfort?
Imagine life without a laptop, mobile phone, car, electricity, medicine, microwave oven, fridge, washing machine, dishwasher, lava lamp, MRI scanner, vaccines, air conditioning, clocks, vacuum cleaners, heaters, lights, and bikes.
I feel like I am privileged to be living in a time of advanced technology. I can only hope that I can witness more futuristic technological inventions such as space tourism, robot butlers, flying cars, and lab-grown meat.
I also hope that humans will start to use technology in favor of the environment, not against it. I hope technology can help us clean the ocean from plastic, recycle our waste, save wildlife from extinction, provide clean water, fix climate changes, generate renewable energy, and build smart homes.
There is no doubt that technology has a great influence on humanity. From the beginning of the 20th century till now technology has influenced us in both positive and negative ways. There are a lot of technologies that have negative effects on the environment and our lives such as the evil single-use plastic. While it contributes to the comfort of our daily living especially at the shopping centre, it also destroys our planet and contributes to the death of our oceans. According to Onyalife, only 9% of the plastic we manufacture makes it to recycling facilities around the world. The rest is dumped in our water or landfill.
More examples of evil or useless technologies are nuclear weapons, face recognition, Microsoft Office assistant Clippy, Facebook, asbestos, and many others.
However eco-friendly technologies such as solar power, LED lighting, and biodegradable plastic are becoming more and more household items.
Last but not least, technology is the result of our thinking and our desire to invent. We can’t eliminate technology from our life. It is what makes humans superior creatures among other living creatures on this planet. Technology can kill millions with nuclear bombs or light our houses with electricity. It is our choice to use it for good or bad.
Conclusion
All sorts of technologies are embedded in many aspects of our world.
Being not able to use technology or having no access to technologies such as computers, the internet, automobiles, and mobile phones because of age or location is considered a big disadvantage these days.
Technology can mitigate a lot of our daily life struggles such as banking, shopping, social isolation, health and well-being, and more.
Digital technologies are considered basic human rights such as the internet, not just a comfort tool.
The argument that technology has not made our lives more comfortable is baseless. Most of us blame technology when it comes to social and mental health. I hear phrases such as “Social media is ruining our lives” “We became addicted to technology” “Wireless devices making us sick” or “5G network is spreading coronavirus”.
All these negative attitudes toward technology are the result of us not knowing how to use technology in our daily lives, not because of technology itself. Also, many of us have deep worries about the impact of emerging technologies on our lives.
I see technology as empowerment for our world. We can’t take technology out of our life. We can’t go back to the time before the industrial revolution. Technology will continue to evolve to cater to our needs and make our life more easy to live.
References
- Hopkins, J., 2020. 9 Amazing Mobile Marketing Statistics Every Marketer Should Know. [online] Blog.hubspot.com. Available at: [Accessed 2 August 2020].
- Bae, H., 2020. Bill Gates Emails Microsoft Employees To Celebrate Company's 40Th Anniversary. [online] CNNMoney. Available at: [Accessed 2 August 2020].
- En.wikipedia.org. 2020. Amazon Alexa. [online] Available at: [Accessed 2 August 2020].
- Future of Everything. 2020. What's The Future Of Voice Recognition? |. [online] Available at: [Accessed 2 August 2020].
- Czaja, S., Charness, N., Fisk, A., Hertzog, C., Nair, S., Rogers, W. and Sharit, J., 2006. Factors predicting the use of technology: Findings from the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (create). Psychology and Aging, 21(2), pp.333-352.
- Onya Australia. 2020. 48 Eco-Friendly Products To Buy Today To Stop Plastic Waste Australia. [online] Available at: [Accessed 3 August 2020].
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