Technology is doubling exponentially as per Moore’s Law which is a reason for an affordable smartphone turning into a dazzling small package with enhanced capabilities. Homo sapiens evolved from their early predecessors between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago. The discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel happened 100,000 years ago. They developed a capacity for language about 50,000 years ago. Invention of the telephone by Graham Bell took place 140 years ago. Keypad mobile phones as we know them today have only been around in the last 20 years. The keypad converted to a smartphone in less than 10 years. And today, the penetration of smartphones has increased tremendously such that 95% of this country have mobile phones. Nothing in history compares to the rapid development of technology we’ve witnessed in our lives.

Technology in diverse sectors

Technology has begun to fill almost all of our waking time, offering unlimited entertainment at our fingertips. We may not think about it much but we spend hours of our life staring at a screen. Smartphones, social media, and even the internet are by all comparisons new and novel, though it’s already hard to remember a time before them. Since the late 1990s, the television news industry has been melding fact with fiction and is becoming more focused on entertaining than informing. Do we encounter a situation these days when all members of the family are sitting in a room and yet there is silence? Many times predominant silence exists because each person one is engaged and busy with their mobile phones trying to share or access information of friends, family, distant acquaintances and sometimes strangers. This is the amount of space technology has captured in our lives.

Technology in Education

Technological advances have been in all sectors starting from agriculture, transport to education. Technology in education is a field in itself targeting various educational tools like tablets, phones, digital content, smartboards, projectors, etc. for students. Schools and teachers of the remotest areas try to access digital content and enhanced online techniques and teaching strategies for students today. But for what? Is it to give a new experience, exposure and enriched learning to the students or is it because they want to be a part of this race of technologically advanced schools, teachers and students that could act as a status quo too.

Technology in daily lives

Technology addiction is having quite a moment, as evidence mounts that electronic devices, especially smartphones, may contribute to screen-time dependence. The penetration of advanced technologies in our lives is so much these days that the moment we step out of our house, we are dependent on some or the other advanced technologies starting from booking a cab, using maps for navigation to making an online transaction. Technologies like Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home devices are meant to transform the way you manage your life and control your home, using artificial intelligence. These smart, user-friendly and adaptive devices have been designed to ease out human efforts at home. But, as they make some tasks easy for the audience, are they at the same time also replacing the value of a human presence?

A good example of replacement of a human presence is the voice assistant platforms like Apple’s Siri or Google assistant that have gathered a lot of attention for discussion. Imagine you having a conversation with someone on historical relevance of Qutub Minar or your recently watched shows, read books or loved actors and sometime later getting a news/article recommendation on similar topics on your smartphone. Have you experienced it? If No, try it once and if yes, you have your answer. These voice assistants are by default enabled in all smartphones thus leading to recording all data points and formulating them through artificial intelligence to showcase it in our feed. A look at the frequency of voice assistants usage:  

Nearly 75 percent of respondents use their voice devices at least once a day, with 57 percent using their device multiple times a day. These numbers are very similar to the results last year.

Technology is so deeply integrated into our lives and has done a lot of good for the world, too. It undoubtedly allows us to be more connected than ever to people and places all over the globe. Social media can bring awareness to important movements like never before and help to enact real change in the world. We should also try and foster technological development to enhance these aspects. In a plethora of offerings of the advanced technologies, the question still remains the same: Have we already fallen victim to technological advances? or time is yet to come for this to happen? But, because we are the creators and inventors of developments in technology, maybe we will never fall prey to it.

“There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory.” — Neil Postman