Technology of This Millennium, Is It Worth It?

Back in 1999 we were looking forward to the new millennium with both fear and optimism! 

Fear was because we were told that when the clocks struck midnight (00:00) on January 1^st, 2000 all electronics were going to stop working, the electrical grids would shut down, no access to bank accounts (account info would be lost) transportation would fail, nothing would work because the internal clocks couldn’t comprehend the date and time being al zeros, 00:00 hours the year 00.  If none of that happened there was still the fear of the unknown, but that fear of the unknown was also exciting and a cause for optimism.

 Optimism because if the world did not shut down technology was progressing and what was once just a dream would become a possibility.  Back in 1999 most people used the internet for email communications, AOL was what people used for emails, cell phones were primarily just for calls and there were no “smartphones”.  We saw the future as helping enhance our ability to perform work, to enhance our humanity and better enable our ability to help others.  We saw so many possibilities to make life easier and more productive, technology was going to be a time savor for us.

Well, we survived New Years Eve of December 31, 1999, the world did not crash, and we went on about our lives, technological changes continued as well.  We could look up information via the internet instead of the set of Encyclopedias your mother bought for you as a child or by cashing in her Green Stamps (anyone remember going to the Green Stamp store).  You no longer had to go to the library to do research of to get a book to read, you could download an “E-book” to read.  Then came Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Parler and other social media platforms to keep in touch with one another or reconnect with long lost friends.  You no longer needed to write a letter or post card, buy stamps and go to the post office, all you do now is a few clicks on a keyboard to send an email or text message (before this millennium the only message you received on your phone was a voice mail if you had the latest mobile phone).

It used to be that on payday you had to go to the bank to cash your paycheck, if the bank was closed you had to go to the grocery store where you had check cashing privileges to get cash.  Now you just go to the ATM to get cash, use direct deposit for your paycheck, checks have gone the way of the telephone, both are obsolete and nearly nonexistent anymore.  Life has certainly gotten easier for financial transactions, you can shop online for almost anything including groceries, life has got easier but has the cost been worth it?

A part of the cost has been a lack of personal face to face interaction with others.  Oral communications is a skill, carrying on a conversation and being able to see the other person’s reaction, their body language so you can immediately know if they understood what you said or it’s meaning.  It seems that we have also lost our ability to interact with others especially if they have a different point of view.  It used to be that if someone had a different opinion, we could discuss our differences, we could engage one another and learn why each had the opinion they did, if someone had a different opinion we could still get along.  We used to engage each other in a dialog and learn why they thought what they did without hatred.  We used to be able to speak with one another not at one another but not anymore.

Now if someone does not agree with you, they do not have a different opinion, they are the enemy, they are not worth talking to.  Now with social media we do not have to think before expounding on our point of view, worse than that we seem to believe that if we post something social media we can’t or shouldn’t be held accountable for our actions.

By engaging someone in a conversation you got to develop a rapport, learn about each other and in many cases even though you may be a member of a different political party or religion you became friends.  We used to judge and accept people based on the total person but that seems to have gone the way of the home phone.  We used to believe that all people should be treated the same, should be able to interact with others.  We used to be proud of our ethnicity, our heritage as well as that of others.  But in recent years we have seen students on college campuses demand that others be excluded, although they did not use the specific wording and may not have realized it these students have been expressing that they prefer separate but equal.  We used to praise and admire someone that achieved their goal but often now we demand to know why him or her!  An achievement by another used to be a motivator, an incentive to work a little harder to achieve your goal, not seen as a reason to dislike or hate another.

I guess what I’m really asking is; was our compassion, our humanity, our being a good neighbor really a justifiable price for the technological advances this millennium has produced so far?  I for one don’t think so!  Hopefully instead of being the full price we must pay for technology; these virtues will just be a deposit that we get back at some point.  So far when you look at history every time there has been an advancement in technology it has brought out some bad traits in society  but after society has become accustomed to the technological changes it reverts back to those positive traits.  I am hoping that just as in the past this is a phase and that history will repeat itself.

That’s My Opinion, What’s Yours