What do you think of technology?

Yesterday I was asked a question;

What do you think of technology?

And it REALLY made me think...What do I think of technology?

I’m a child of the Millennial Generation apparently, and as such, I grew up in a time on the cusp of the technological revolution. No pictures of me drunk at parties in the early 2000's exist because at that time no one had a camera phone…Thank goodness!

But at the same time, I got to hone my digital skills with the latest of technologies, the start of computer processing to submit uni work, the use of emails and MSN for communication, text messages WOW what were those and Facebook was created for me and my peers who were at University in 2007. I even did something called a European Computer Driving Licence when I left school at 16 and I thought of myself as tech-savvy!

I loved technology, the ability it had to expand a person's or businesses communicative reach and the good that it could do in sharing ideas, improving data interpretation and collection for medical sciences and even making our daily lives easier in the future.

But I’m starting to feel like I’ve missed something. As quickly as I was an early adopter of each of these new technologies 20 years ago, I am now quickly trying to get rid of them all.

I favour phone calls over text messages.

I want to meet rather than Zoom.

I shut my Facebook account down 5 years ago, losing a lifetime of pictures and memories but I am glad these no longer come to bite me in my emotional arse every year as a reminder of how old I’m getting and how terrible I felt at that time when that picture was taken.

We are not actually meant to live our lives in the past, that’s why as time goes on our memories deteriorate and we hold onto and cherish the ones we want to and that we prize the most. Not look every day at that burger you had in Huddersfield in 2007, oh my god, move on, move forward. Never mind what you were doing then, what the hell are we doing now?

In addition, to that the same technology that was supposed to speed things up for me, make my life easier, improve my life and that of others and generally make the world a better place…In my opinion, is actually f*cking us up! Yes, that’s what I said…

The stress it caused me to support my daughter’s student finance application should never be replicated.

The difficulty I had in accessing the solicitor’s portal to upload the documents I needed to upload for my recent re-mortgage I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

And as for a safer, better life, I have had my identity stolen online and seen people receive unimaginable abuse that I am absolutely 100% positive they would not have had said to their face. But hiding behind a screen and a keyboard makes some people say some horrible things.

Algorithms now discriminate, actively...Which boggles the mind when we are all working so hard on "Levelling-Up".

Now I also don’t think I’m alone in this…We are smack bang in the middle of a technological revolution that is getting quicker by the day because technology speeds things up. Man, two of the wealthiest men in the world took their own Rocket Ships (They didn't want to work together) into space last month for an 11-minute trip. That has to be the biggest d*ck swinging competition in the history of the world, and if you’re in any doubt take a look at the shape of Jeff Bezos’s Rocket the Blue Origin, do I have a point?

I know this is a bit ranty, but the true sentiment is there. We need to be careful because at this rate we will do ourselves out of jobs, keep ourselves out of reach, risk losing all of our money because we can't find our password and finding that the computer doesn't just say no, it will say ABSOLUTELY NOT to things we really need to be saying YES to.

I know there is more to technology than what i've covered here, the great leaps we have made in medical science, the way in which apps can be used to make life easier for those that without the tech it would be difficult and how it can be much easier to connect and collaborate across the globe all with the click of a button.

I am not trying to take away the usefulness of technology, I just hope that we stop just using and innovating tech for tech's sake...That we never forget the power of human interaction, the importance of emotion in decision making and the ability to give and take opportunities that arise from chance meetings, or the ability to speak to people.

So what do I think of technology? I think it's great, as long as it is used to facilitate and support human interaction and doesn't take over.

What do you think?