Has Technology Made our Life Easier?

Growing up in the 70’s I remember an almost carefree life without having to worry about my hard-drive crashing, computer viruses, my cell phone connection etc. This being said let’s fast-forward to today where for each family event we typically have three camera taking opportunities in our possession:
1) A standard 35mm file camera
2) A digital camera
3) A camcorder

Although its’ nice capturing memories on different mediums – it’s sometimes can be stressful trying to capture those moments via the different mediums. Additionally – once one has captured the memories – then its’ work in regards to the digital picture medium to download the pictures -> size them -> modify them as desired with a background or taking our digital camera noise -> then printing them.

Thus, growing up in the 70’s picture taking wasn’t an ordeal – one took their pictures via a single camera – took the film once full and got it developed then got the pictures back and placed them in a scrapbook or filed them away. Well, this brings forth the question: Has technology made our lives easier?

Vacations are suppose to be precious time away from the office – I’ve seen first hand individuals while on vacation spots phoning into the office to check messages, setting-up meetings for late afternoon after the family has been to the amusement park and is done for the day. I’ve seen individuals at museums to parks with mobile devices sending e-mails furiously (I assume back to the office) Again, Has technology made our lives easier?

Writing at one time involved only pen and pencil – you wrote an item down that was it. Now – one can write an item down in their mobile device then transfer it to a standard personal computer. Sometimes the transfer doesn’t go well and one has to make changes at either the input or output level. Then there is the issue of compatibility as sometimes the system which one has entered data into isn’t compatible with another system – which leads to a data entry project. Again, has technology made our lives easier?

Possibly technology has made our lives easier given these situations:

Paying Bills – this is where I have to state technology has done wonders here – with the advent of the Internet, an individual no longer has to worry about stacks of papers and writing checks with a central account – it can all be done electronically. The only risk’s for such convenience is electronic cybercrime, identity theft, transfer theft etc.

Restaurants are now able to centralize their operations and know several minutes after closing – what their financial status is for a given night, what needs to be replenished, what sold well and what didn’t sell well. Before the touch screen menu days – such information would take hours of paper work to be sifted through for the business operations questions.

Communications – in a bitter winter storm I used my cell phone and cancelled a class while on the road and was able to reschedule it to another day. 10 years ago such an event would not have been possible but in today’s technology infrastructure it is.

In closing – technology is good I believe. However, in many cases depending on the circumstance – one has to ask: Has technology made this easier?

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