MouthShut.com Would Like to Send You Push Notifications. Notification may includes alerts, activities & updates.

OTP Verification

Enter 4-digit code
For Business
MouthShut Logo
55 Tips
×

Upload your product photo

Supported file formats : jpg, png, and jpeg

Address



Contact Number

Cancel

I feel this review is:

Fake
Genuine

To justify genuineness of your review kindly attach purchase proof
No File Selected

Two sides of the same coin
Apr 12, 2007 07:14 PM 20916 Views
(Updated Jul 26, 2018 03:48 PM)

Every coin has two sides and if one side is enlarged or shrunk, the other matches the change to the nearest micron.Boon and bane are 2 sides of the technology coin.The review below takes note of few everyday occurrences that remind us of the first statement above.


Satellite Television:


The invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein in early 1991 saw another invasion in the subcontinent - that of Cable / Satellite TV. Few selected viewers in Gujarat saw Iraqi tanks enter Kuwaiti borders over CNN, while our own DD covered the news 12 hours later. By Jan 1992, when the Indian Cricket team were about to face another humiliation in Australia(WC 1992), satellite TV fever was catching on like a forest fire. I was one of the trees to succumb then.


Cable networks were being set-up from everywhere to everywhere in  cities, towns and even villages. Local rats rejoiced as new highways were laid out for them at our expense. Crows, sparrows and other winged creatures welcomed the increase in perching space.Sorry for all men / women / children who have been at the receiving end of their droppings from cable wires.


As time passed, the number of channels increased exponentially bringing the best media sources to our drawing room. I was especially thrilled to see more cricket on Prime sports than what DD would show. Infontainment channels like Discovery, Nat Geo and news channels like BBC, CNN, CNBC etc were welcomed. It also brought MTV and Channel V to our homes, liked by many and disliked by many others. A cultural shift had begun.With the spurt of more news channels we have seen a mad race to sensationalise news. Aaj Tak, Zee-News, STAR news have all been culprits on umpteen occassions. I remember of an instance few months back when the whole nation was watching a young boy being rescued from a deep well, being telecast live by more than a dozen channels. There is little any of the million odd viewers could have done, but it did put millions of productive man-hours of the country out of use. In my opinion, this is boon as well as bane of technology. Our army would have saved the boy even 20 years back with their efforts, but without coverage.


Star Plus was a good channel to hit the Indian shores, but after being infested by the termite known as Ekta Kapoor, it has been reduced to a waste. The millions who watch the dozens of saas-bahu serials not only waste their time but also get influenced by the behaviour depicted by the unreal characters. Technology acted as a catalyst in spreading TV viewership to the remotest parts of the country.


KBC has generated good business for Star Plus, Airtel, Hutch, and few others. People use their  phones to SMS answers to questions put by KBC in order to stand a chance to win. The SMSes and calls are charged at premium rates thus minting crores for the mobile providers.This is symbiosis of various technologies to work for a common cause(money). Its definately a boon for anyone who wins anything more than what he invests(calls/SMS) but a bane for all who do not.


*Mobile Telephony / Pagers:


*Pagers did appear in the Indian market in the early and mid-nineties but were soon overshadowed by mobile phones. It started as a need for high-flying executives and as a showpiece for status for the rich and the useless.With more penetration and regular reduction in call rates the numbers rose like a swarm of mosquitoes in breeding season. As per current stats, the number of cellphones subcribers in NCR will outnember landline connections by end of 2010. This is similar to wrist watches outnumbering wall clocks on the 1950's.I know of a cobbler who takes orders on his cell phone, picks up stuff from your doorstep and delivers it back in 24 hrs and is always available(I earlier thought that its only me who is expected to be available 24X7). The concept of Office hours has vanished.


Mobiles today can deal in SMS/MMS or surf Internet. Most act as fair quality cameras(still+ video), music systems and what nots. The ill effects have been around for as long as the technology has been around. Haven't we heard of MMS rackets?. The buzzing of some cellphone after every 90-120 seconds in office(with notoroiusly irritating ringtones) is a bane for a poor man's ears, especially for someone like me who gets calls only from his wife(and sales people). Downloadable ringtones are a boon or a bane depending on where you stand.Your boss might call you up while you were expecting a call from your girlfriend, and when you try to reach out for that colleague of your who has borrowed Rs 10, 000, he would either be out of reach(quite true) or would have switched off his cellphone.


Plastic Money:


ATMs have certainly made our lives easier. The availability of money 24x7 and at locations in several cities is necessary nowadays. One can travel without carrying too much cash.Its a bane if you forget your PIN or enter a wrong pin 3 times.


Credit Cards or Debit cards as we know them have replaced a large chunk of cash transactions. This is courtsey gateways like Visa, Mastercard and Diners Card etc. The boon here is that one does not need to carry cash all the time, hence reducing the risk of monetary loss via theft. The bane here is that if the Credit Card is stolen in turn, someone else may put you under 1000s of INR depending on your credit limit. It does away with the need to run to the bank in case you want to buy something costing more than what who have in your wallet / purse.It does expose you to the risk of spending more than what you normally earn.


And how could one forget the sales calls selling personal loans, home loans, credit cards.and the moon? Bane or a boon?


World Wide Web:


There are exabytes of knowledge available over the internet for us to use.The boon is enormous, all of us know that. We can not fathom living in a WWWless world anymore. Students benefit in a way that was not there when people of my age group were in School or College.Banks and financial institutions use online transactions to good use for all stakeholders. It is possible to make utility bill payments over the internet now, which saves us time and long queues. Sites like irctc.com are so useful and popular for same reasons.Emails are always preferable to snail mail for most of our communications nowadays. The bane stems from the misuse of internet. We never heard of cyber crimes prior to https:// Email gave birth to spammers and chain mails.However email can be considered as a boon for all vella people as they could put their creative energies creating and sending new jokes and cartoons. I am not sure how many of us received emails with fabricated pictures of the Indian Cricket team with their new careers after the 2007 WC fiasco.


Artificial intelligence is another area where we see both sides of the coin. In years to come it will become the way of life. Check this out in 10 years and every IT/non IT person would be talking about it.We would need some kind of cyber-legislation to allow us to control how our personal data is being used, as it will be all over. The source of data capture will increase exponentially in kind and numbers. Cell phones as cameras will proliferate. Social sites will be filled with our whereabouts via improved GPS. Public area CCTV cameras will capture our movements more and more. Perhaps privacy will need to be redefined, but will not be the same again.


We live in an ever engulfing technology environment. Breakthrough technologies today will become way of life in a few months and passe in a few years.It solely depends upon us as to how we put these advances to our use. We may use the same for betterment of our lives and society OR misuse them to create trouble for ourselves and the society. Whether technology works out as a boon or as a bane depends completely on how we put it to use, technology has no personality or intentions.As I wrote earlier - every coin has two sides of the same size.


Upload Photo

Upload Photos


Upload photo files with .jpg, .png and .gif extensions. Image size per photo cannot exceed 10 MB


Comment on this review

Read All Reviews

X