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Are we becoming a generation overly dependent on technology?

By on 2014/07/21

Last week, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) announced it will collaborate with Novartis AG (VTX:NOVN) on a new model of smart contact lenses that monitor blood sugar levels and could even correct impaired vision. This is the latest project unveiled by Google X, the development team behind its Web-connected eyewear, Google Glass. 

As exciting as it sounds, I can’t help thinking we are becoming a more and more dependent bunch of technology geeks, unable to stay more than one minute without checking our phone, plugging and charging our devices so we don’t miss anything from the over-saturated world wide web. Do we really “need” it?

I have to admit that when it comes to technology advances, I have very mixed feelings. I have been in touch with computers since a very early age, probably earlier than most people in my generation, which was a great advantage for me as I grew older and got close to start a career as a communication professional -where computer skills are essential. At the same time, raised in the 80s, I had also the chance to spend a childhood of traditional playing, years before the Nintendo gameboy came out and kids started to prefer the comfort of playing indoors, on their own, or with their virtual game buddies.

I am confident that anyone living in a modern city these days could go along a full week without talking to anyone using his/her voice. What for? We have online shopping, email, instant messaging and gps!!

While there were afternoons when playing hide-and-seek and monopoly was good enough to have real fun, I also found myself full of excitement in my teens, the first time I visited an internet cafe and stared at the computer for a pixel per minute download of the latest picture of my musical idols or chatted to one of my old pen friends through Microsoft messenger for the first time.

It’s been a long journey since those days, where we used to phone landlines, wait for CDs to come out to listen to a song for the first time, have a movie in the cinemas for months, sending letters instead of emails. Aside from the nostalgia of those days, I can’t help to think that life was much simpler, more relaxed, as we had not yet experience the instancy as well as the impatience of getting information from the other corner of the world in a matter of a second.

Yet again (as said, my mixed feelings on the subject fill me up with contradiction), though I appreciate that Internet, instant messaging and mobile technology had provided so many advantages for businesses I am not sure if they are completely beneficial at a personal level, especially when I see couples having dinner at restaurants in silence while they browse through their phones; commuters going around trains staring at their devices neck down oblivious to the people around them or the street view they are missing, teenagers relying on Facebook and wassup to start “conversation” with “friends”.

The term “Social” has been given a very different meaning… Are we really more Social than before? In the “real” world, I’d say, we are much less. Equipped with Google maps and navigation systems, we don’t even bother to ask for directions anymore and we sure use or phone to entertain ourselves in waiting rooms, trains and pubs while we wait for someone, blocking any chances for anyone to approach us. I am confident that anyone living in a modern city these days could go along a full week without talking to anyone using his/her voice. What for? We have online shopping, email, instant messaging and gps!!

Going a step further…will we evolve into a specie of silent humans with super quick thumbs in 100 years time?

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