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Boon or Bane- In our Hands
May 23, 2007 06:35 PM 132580 Views
(Updated May 23, 2007 06:43 PM)

“Is Technology a boon or a bane?” not an easy question to answer. It is a topic with lots of complexities, which are beyond the scope of this review. The fact is technology has contributed to significant improvements in areas of medicine, communication, travel, human living, education. It has also contributed to global warming, nuclear stockpiles, mechanization of human life.


So is technology good or evil? Let us take a very simple example of a matchstick. One can use it to light a lamp or light a fire for cooking. It can also be used to light a fire that burns some one’s home down or a newly wide bride who has not bought in enough dowry to satisfy her in law’s endless greed. The matchstick by itself is just a harmless object. In the hands of a mother lighting the lamp or the cooking fire, it becomes beneficial. The same matchstick in the hands of a small careless child, could prove to be fatal. And when it becomes a tool for the person to burn down a home, or a newly wedded bride, it becomes a tool to kill and destroy.


Technology is like that matchstick, a tool, which on it’s own has no use. It’s when some one owns it, that it becomes a boon or a bane. A doctor could use the CT scan to diagnose a person’s illness and take the necessary action. The same doctor could also use the CT scan to determine whether the unborn child is a female, and if yes, get it aborted. In both cases the CT scan does the same function it is expected to. In the first case it assists in saving a patient’s life, in the second case, it assists in terminating an unborn person’s life. The difference is in the usage, here the culprit is not technology, but the person using it. I can use a knife to cut vegetables or cut a rope, I can use the same knife to murder some one. So who is at fault here, the knife or the owner?


Technology is a boon as long as it is our slave. It’s when we let it become a master, that it becomes a bane. Mind you on it’s own, technology can never be your master. We are light years away from robots who can control humans and artificial intelligence, so lets not even go there first. When you say technology is dominating your life, in a sense you are allowing it to do so. As a human being you have a brain, to decide what’s wrong, what’s not, when to stop, and when to get off. If you are unable to use that brain, you don’t have any right to blame others for it. People complain that technology makes one lazy and obese. Sorry, it’s  not technology that’s at fault here, its you. If you have become a couch potato, that is your choice. You had the choice of switching off the remote control, you did not. You don’t have any right to crib about it. You find that you are unable to walk even for a short distance, because you became so used to taking out your car even for a short distance, who is at fault. You?No one put a gun to your head, and asked you to drive the car even for a short distance, you did. When you allow technology to become a master, in effect your letting your life go for a toss. Unfortunately that’s what is happening today, where people are becoming addicted to technology, that they are unable to do even a simple task.


How does one ensure technology remains your slave not your master? Do this very simple exercise, before you set out to buy that latest gadget in the market, ask yourself one question “Do I really need this?” .  We keep buying those fancy cell phones with innumerable features, how many of us really use them all? Is your life less worthy, because you don’t have that new camera phone or thelatest Ipod or that jazzy Xbox? I don’t have an **Ipod or Xbox with me, and the cell phone I use is a very basic version, yet people have not stopped talking to me. If you are buying something because it’s a fad or every one is having it, you are taking the first step to become a techno slave. Best of luck if that’s how you want to end up, else continue reading. Now once you are sure, that you do really need it, only then go ahead and take it, that too after checking all the facts.  A Blackberry is pretty useful if you are a person on the move, working from home, and you need to be in touch with your clients most of the time. If you are not, its nothing better than a pretty show piece.


And once you buy it, make sure that you use it. I am a technical person, and nothing hurts me more than to see something lying like a museum piece. I had often seen this in Govt offices, where you had so many computers, lying around like museum pieces. Total waste of money, has those same PC’s been donated to some poor students, they would have used it in a much better way. Remember this when you have some technology at your home, and you are not using it, in effect, you are depriving a person, who could have used that much more effectively.


I was reading an article in a Tech magazine sometime back. There was an article in the vision of the future. So it came up with something like “Homes will be remote controlled, air conditioners will automatically adjust themselves, cars will have more fancy features, blah, blah”.  Nice futuristic stuff, good to imagine, but really how beneficial it will be. All those fancy stuff, will benefit only a small percentage of population, who can afford them, what about the rest. And that is where I feel we have been failing in recent times. The greatest technical inventions are those which have affected the larger mass of people, not just a few bored rich kids. At times they started off as rich man’s play things, but later they filtered down to the common man. For eg the mobile phone started off in India as a luxury item, today, even the paanwala and auto driver use it.The Internet, mobile phone, automobile, rail travel, CT scan have made significant difference to people’s lives. Technology works as a boon only when it affects the larger mass of people, not when it is used to come up with fancy gadgets for a small section of rich people. Technology works only when it becomes easier and cheaper for people to use.


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