There’s a bogus 8th Grade Test that makes the rounds once in a while, purporting to demonstrate how far our educational system has fallen. Similarly, we occasionally get a spate of essays and books (and essays-become-books) that make the claim that technology is eroding our knowledge, weakening our ability to think, and otherwise dehumanizing us. Please pardon the expression, but that’s a load of horseshit.
Don’t get me wrong. Collectively, we (USians in particular) are a bunch of morons. We eat crap, we don’t exercise, we don’t save, we consume too many resources, we pollute too much, we buy everything on credit, and when things don’t go our way, we sue. Expand that list to include your own personal pet peeves or flaws as you like. Regardless, technology is seldom the culprit.
Human beings naturally fear what we don’t understand. Information can only be disseminated and absorbed so quickly, and rapidly changing technology is therefore only ever understood by a few. Enter fear.
Sometimes that fear manifests harmlessly, and you end up being the only kid in 7th grade without a first-generation digital watch. Dad was afraid I’d forget how to read minute hand. Sometimes it’s dangerous and we let pretty actresses convince us that vaccinations cause Autism. The growth of the web was going to obsolete personal connections: Go ahead and chuckle about that among the High School friends you’ve reconnected with via Facebook.
Just as with the monster under your bed, the flashlight of perspective can help. 1987 was not a good time to spend a winter night in a broken down car on a back road in the middle of nowhere. Today, I’ll play the silly game and turn off my phone at the gas pump so long as I can call AAA at 2:30 in the morning. Or when was the last time you had to check your watch to see if you could still get cash? And you have to admit the iPod landscape is must more pleasant than one full of shoulder-mounted boom boxes.
Okay, so tech is convenient. But does it make you dumb?
Consider: Did you ever have to learn all the state capitals? Have you needed the full list since? I never had to learn them, but it took mere seconds find that the "capitol" of Illinois is Springfield. Oh, and that the state Capitol building is the 6th in the state’s history, so (besides the spelling refresher) I learned more than I was looking for. And today’s smart phones put such ease within arm’s reach.
Consider: Did your kid ever have a rash that worried you? The Internet doesn’t replace doctors, but it can tell you whether it’s just diaper rash or something worse. Or that the snake that bit isn’t poisonous. And that the above ground fruit of the potatoes in your garden is toxic.
Tom-Tom has all but replaced the paper map. So what? Paper maps are hard to fold, they require that you have enough room to use one properly, they’re obsolete off the press and have to be regularly replaced for updated content, and they are completely useless for getting around city traffic. The guy who can fold a map or the guy that can program his turn-by-turn: Which one do you think is smarter?
The Web has all but replaced newspapers. Google has replaced the card catalog. Email has replaced parchment and the goose-feather quill. Sure, there are a few negatives that come with the territory. And sometimes change is scary. But let’s not blame the vehicle.
"The good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems." —Billy Joel
"The [Virginia Tech] Corps [of Cadets] isn’t what it used to be. But it probably never was." —phrits’s Dad
[Update, 2010-07-14: Comments have been turned off because it was only generating spambot feedback. If you have something worthwhile to contribute, drop a line to the webmaster and we'll get your voice appropriately heard.]
(Duplicate comment under a different name deleted. I’ll assume not spam at this point.)
I think Tom-Tom and its task-dedicated competition is already obsolescing. I have free turn-by-turn navigation with my Sprint cell phone service, for example, and many of the new smart phones are coming out with the same sort of stuff built in. If On*Star, etc. doesn’t have it yet, it will.
The interfaces may not be quite as nice, but free is a tough price point to get past for the minor differences. I can imagine there will still be a business market for extended services–delivery routes, centrally managed dispatching tie-ins, etc.–but those bells and whistles won’t matter much to the casual travelers who have bought all those dashboard gadgets.
I’ve come to decide that the question was spam. The keyword "technology" must have alerted the spambots, because I’m deleting two or three a day. The bot-generated comments are vague but complimentary, read as if they were poorly translated from another language, often include random extended-ASCII characters, and always link the "author’s" name to a storefront of some sort. I’m keeping the one above because it asked a question I wanted to answer.
I have to admit, the GPS navigation on my droid phone is less than ideal. useless, even. While I know it’s a matter of the software, I’ve enjoyed TOM TOM and it’s like, but I agree: one-trick-pony technology will almost always have a pretty short shelf life. Even my watch can tell time, act as a compass and calender.