Do you feel that having technology so accessible causes problems?

Of course it causes problems. And don’t stop at “computers and the internet”. Consider automobiles. There was a time when if you wanted to drive to town you had to harness the horses and be able to handle a team.

Nowadays anyone with a couple of hundred bucks can get behind the wheel of a car and do 90 mph up and down my street. I could send you photos.

Just relax and enjoy life anyway, as much as you can… and be extra vigilant if you’re going to cross the information superhighway. No pedestrians allowed there, you know.

absolutely. It’s a great thing to connect with people in short ways. The problem is if that’s all we do, we never really grow close with them.

Journalist Mitch Ratcliffe said, “Computers have enabled people to make more mistakes faster than almost any invention in history, with the possible exception of tequila and hand guns” and I think that just about sums it up. People screw up and make the same kind of mistakes they have always made but the technology just makes them more efficient at doing it and sadly, leaves a permanent record if you let it.

Technology isn’t causing the problem.

It is people’s obsession with and inability to live without it that is creating the problems.

I often wonder what the effect will be on these generations of children who have parents who are always yakking on their cellphones rather than talking to the kids.

What will become of the kids who have lost all ability to entertain themselves on even the shortest of car trips because of the total dependence on car dvd players?

Technology coupled with the instant gratification and easily bored mindsets of people today is a big problem that is likely to get bigger.

I predict a further dumbing down of society wherein people come to believe with all their hearts that their daily lives inane details are worthy of immediate and widespread broadcasts. I also predict the narcissism this over focus creates will spread like an out of control oil spill…poisoning everything it touches.

That’s all for now, I have to go check my facebook account and twitter all the legions of people who are waiting breathlessly to hear all about my next move…..

I agree that it causes problems, but you can’t ignore the good things it has done, either. The web has enabled people to not only learn about other cultures, but to interact with people from other cultures. It has broadened horizons, immensely. Brought certain injustices to our attention that regular media never would have bothered with, etc. That said, the harm it causes can be just as great.

It’s all about balance, which many people seem to lack in most things. Whether it’s food, alcohol, personal relationships, the environment or the internet. The list goes on and on. There’s no doubt that we’re facing a very different world in the future, but then… That’s always been the case.

@CyanoticWasp I meant technology in general. I included cellphones in there, but didn’t go into the other things like automobiles and such for brevity’s sake.

@jerv okay, and I left out some things, too. “Technology” has been causing problems (or to paraphrase what @Merriment said “over-use and over-dependence on technology”) has been causing problems since the Stone Age. (I also quite liked @lillycoyote‘s quote, too.)

But, so what? Not using technology would cause problems, too. We’re a messy, problematic species. (Even your old pen and paper caused problems, didn’t it?)

As @DrasticDreamer reminds us, it’s not all bad. Kids are becoming more street-smart… without having to live in the streets. People are becoming more aware of “the world” ... it’s not just centered around their neighborhood, or even their country.

And when they learn to use that technology just a little bit better, it’s pretty amazing what they can do with it sometimes. (And the technological medium hardly matters: it could be pen and paper, stone, automobiles… or a computer and the Internet.) I don’t worry about it too much.

The problem with the over use of technology that makes it more damaging than not using technology is that people have allowed technology to replace normal interactions that low tech alternatives could not jeopardize.

For instance; In the olden days if one didn’t want to remain alone in his cave for ever he had to venture out…at least as far as the watering hole to find some company. And in doing so he was forced to exhibit at least some other skills to get there and to hook up.

Now the average cave dweller can remain in his cave, spin a tale about who they really are, and surf the web until he finds “virtual” company.

I think that instead of making kids “street smart” this is making them tech savy and inter-personally retarded.

@Merriment The internet didn’t enable people to lie. People can lie about who they are straight to someone’s face just as easily.

@CyanoticWasp True, true. However, I personally feel that the early 21st-century is a bit much a bit soon. Sure, we’ve had similar problems to a lesser extent in the past, but I feel that the current situation is a bit like trying to drink from a firehose.

“And when they learn to use that technology just a little bit better…”
Couple that with the rise of anti-intellectualism in this country and I don’t see that happening. I sincerely hope to be proven wrong, but I’ve seen things get worse since my days in high school when my fellow students asked me to copy games for them.

While I do believe that making technology more accesible causes problems, I think that it’s advantages are far greater than it’s dissadvantages.

Long gone are the days when you needed long intensive training to complete simple tasks on computers. That’s what drove most people away from technology. Putting technology in the hands of millions has brought the world much closer together than it was before. I’ve reconnected with so many old friends using Facebook that I now talk to regularly because of Facebook’s widespread use. Adults and even more children are becoming more and more open to the use of new technologies and I believe it’s made the general public even smarter.

Even though a knife can be very dangerous, it has several benefits too. We can cut our food but also cut our arms, but I don’t think we should blame the knife for our own mistakes. You can’t stop someone from cutting themselves but you can always help them avoid those kinds of outcomes. That’s why what I do believe in is making technology simpler (which doesn’t mean less capable, just because something is simpler doesn’t mean it does less) and easier to use, which can help people avoid making these kinds of mistakes that they didn’t mean to do.

So yes, I do believe making technology more accessible causes problems, but it also brings an enormous amount of solutions. This is why I support the widespread use of technology that is present today.

@rawrgrr “Long gone are the days when you needed long intensive training to complete simple tasks on computers. ”
That is why I liked Macs back before Windows came out. That is why I somewhat like the newer versions of Windows, and I feel that the newer distros of Linux with GUIs instead of a pure CLI are a gift from above. Just because I figured it all out in a few days when I was in the 2nd grade, that doesn’t mean that everyone can. I don’t have a problem with making things a bit simpler. The fact that many make things simpler by locking/removing options instead of just hiding them behind a button that says “Advanced Settings” is a pet peeve of mine, yet something certain companies are famous for. But we’ve already been through that ad nauseum, so I won’t digress here.

But I think that the real issue here is that many people don’t bother to learn responsibility. My mother taught me to use a knife, but who is teaching people about new technology? People sure are not teaching themselves, given how many don’t RTFM. Definitely not the people who don’t understand it either, like my parent’s generation. And the people in my generation which, I believe, would be your parents, RG are some of the worst offenders; people my age sit there on the phone, too absorbed in their call to remember that there are other people on the road.

Now, if everybody were more like you, rawr, then we wouldn’t have nearly as many problems. More adults would at a minimum use Bluetooth when driving, fewer kids would be posting nude pics of themselves, people would still spell properly, etcetera. And if people actually bothered to understand technology even a little bit then there would be less scamming and price-gouging.

As it stands, we are having some pretty bad teething pains, and there are a lot of people getting hurt; enough that I wonder if society tried to run before learning to walk.

@DrasticDreamer – The ability to lie wasn’t created by technology, it’s true. But it has been elevated to a near art form via it.

For example…face to face it is mostly easy to tell if you are interacting with a person of a certain age and/or gender. Not so with virtual relationships.

@Merriment The Internet; where the Man are men, the women are men, and the children are FBI :P

I would argue that there is no “near” about it.

@jerv -Amen Mister (I think), Amen :) ;)

Yeahhh it deffinately does , there’s always so much drama at school because of facebook and stufff . Rumors spread so much easier these days