TECHNOLOGY: A PLAGUE ON OUR HOUSES

Now here’s an interesting article;

"It's time for 'the next big thing'" [Aardvark, 15 January 2013]

 

I read the article again, and it took me back to the early days of my career at NCR and British Telecom.  Then and there, I loved working with pioneering technology.  In the nineties, I was selling 802.11 (now called wi-fi) as early as 1991, I worked with PC-based video conferencing (pre-Skype) and even tablet PCs.  Email was being touted around London-based Head Offices as “The Next Big Thing.” 

And it’s one of the reasons I’ve virtually stuck two fingers up at my former profession. In those early nineties, when we were flogging email around the financial institutions in London, we told them that it would increase productivity and information flow.  We described how it would usher in the paperless office.  We added that it would save money and give companies a competitive edge.

Well, wharalorrabollox that turned out to be. Now that every major organisation in the world has email, how has it worked out? 

• Productivity has plummeted as staff spend more time reading joke emails than actually working.
• Information flow has ground to a halt as staff are flooded with more emails than they can realistically answer in any single day.
• The paperless office has been revealed as a myth, when staff actually print out multiple copies of their emails.
• Businesses and other organisations are forced to spend more money on network bandwidth as LANs are swamped by emails with unnecessarily large attachments.
• The competitive edge is a fallacy, because now every company has adopted email and is wallowing in the same quagmire.

      My wife spits disgust at the latest fad technologies, and I don't blame her.  She marvels with cynicism at the revolution of Smartphones, Facebook, Google Glass, tablets and more.  But has it solved world peace?  Has it solved world poverty?  Has it solved starvation in Africa?  Of course it hasn’t.  The technology industry now produces frivolous toys; gadgets and gimmicks.  Indeed, the once-proud, high-status technology industry is now at risk of lowering itself to that of a ridiculous, joke, farce industry - like fashion:

• Kids now confine themselves – even more – to their bedrooms, sending thousands of text messages, when they could actually talk to their friends.
• Teenagers become further reclusive.  How many people think THIS is a serious news article?
• Families spend less quality time together as members sit in different rooms with their own, individual internet devices.
• Couples go out and play on their Smartphones, instead of enjoying intimacy.
• Kids discover violence and porn earlier, as technology makes such objectionable material more accessible. 
• Technology companies find even more ways to tie us to our de-sensitising screens, with glasses, more games, and newer, irrelevant operating systems.
• Employees stop talking to each other, as trust goes out the window in an email-blame exchange.

It is with a little shame and guilt that I look back at what we sold back then, and how we sold it.  However, the failings of what we in the IT industry sold didn’t become apparent for many years.  In contrast, the failings of today’s technology are staring us in the face right now.  The question is, what are we going to do about it?

BORED? THEN BUY THE NEXT BIG THING!

Now here’s an interesting article:

"It's time for 'the next big thing'" [Aardvark, 15 January 2013]

This is another article from my favourite blogger. And the reason he’s my favourite blogger, is that he makes me think.

To summarise, Aardvark says there is a decline in Facebook and Twitter numbers, and sales of iPhones are falling – “so what’s the next big thing?”

What is interesting for me is, not “what’s the next best thing?” but “why have people become bored with the last big thing?” I think that says volumes about our consumerist, disposable society. In order for capitalism to survive, it must grow. In order for capitalism to grow, it must produce more to sell. In order for capitalism to sell, it must take market share away from the competition, or convince consumers to buy more. If capitalism can’t do that, it must convince consumers to throw out what they used to have, for the new product – the “next big thing.” And that, my friends, is the root of the problem with our throw-away society.

As I write, I’m listening to my children bickering over whose-is-whose Lego. I am badgered by whines of how it’s THEIR Lego, and how their siblings can’t play with it: “I don’t have much Lego!” “It’s MY Lego,” and “I need MORE Lego!” Bikes, board games and rugby balls are all forgotten, because the “next big thing” is The Hobbit Lego - or something else. The result of all that high-powered marketing, product saturation and brand power, is that my children grow bored with what they have. Or they can never have enough. And us "adults" are little better.

However, the whining over the Lego makes me realise that our children are the most vulnerable to capitalism’s incessant pushing. Children are continually bombarded by messages to “buy, buy, BUY!” Owning becomes more important that playing. Even if “responsible” parents shield them from some of the obvious marketing, capitalism finds insidious ways to constantly shove their wares down our children’s throats; product placement, multiple billboards, sponsorship and peer pressure. Remember, we parents are trying to educate our children to resist these messages of “Buy now!” at the same time as trying to resist these messages, ourselves!

Even if the marketers aren’t saying directly, “Throw out your old product,” they are most certainly persuading us we should be bored with it. You see, we need to buy “The Next Big Thing” in the name of corporate growth.

My wife’s uncle has a great phrase; “Capitalism loves consumers.” No it doesn’t. Capitalism doesn’t even respect consumers. Capitalism sees consumers as a body to pillage and exploit with intelligence-insulting advertising and brand saturation. Call me old fashioned, but that’s not what you do to people you love or respect.

So what’s the “next big thing?” Who cares? If we’re bored, maybe it’s time to enjoy what we already have. And perhaps that means our children - without their new Lego. So now I’m off to enjoy a good old-fashioned board game with my kids.