Technology Makes Us Poor

The title above is a direct quote from Andre Geovanni.  Co-incidentally, Angel talked about technology in her blog a few days ago… and I am here, writing my piece of thought on technology.

Every second, something new is discovered.  We become more advance, one step at another… but we also become much much poorer as we have to spend more, think less when technology advances.

When everything is so easy, we loose of our human ability to do small errands.  I find that nowadays, people really too much on technology that a slight glitch, or a small error will be such a huge fuss.  It’s something very evident among the younger generation which has never felt how it was when there was no internet connection, no mobile phones, and the days then the only transport you have is the public bus.  Yes, it was either that, or a long healthy walk to your destination.

Yet, we claim we can’t live without technology.  Funny.

If you look at one of P.Ramlee’s many movies, you’d laugh watching one of the actors calling out to his next door girlfriend by hitting two bottles.  I believe the movie called is Bujang Lapok and the movie continues to be played until today. Such a classic!  But, that is proof of the living good old days. I used to call my friend out to play by whistling out loud when I was small, hiding whenever his mom was the one appearing, instead of him.  There were no mobile phones, or emails… yet the exercise of doing so, teaches me how to be brave. Brave enough to confront my friends parents and ask if he is around to come out at play, which is something I don’t see in today children which can easily by-pass parents through a simple SMS or email.  These children I believe will grow up learning late about respect and courage, an important aspect of being an adult. Human virtues are slowly going down with technology advancement. How sad.

With human virtues going down, it seems that morale values are going down. Respect over parents are deteriorating, and the dependence on technology ever more increasing. But should we blame all on technology?

Surely not. As hard as we want to avoid it, technology is here to say, and we will continue to spend hundreds a month on technology.  The government themselves have been pushing for better internet penetration in Malaysia, despite knowing the fact that this will have a negative side effect on their votes in years to come.

Well, back to the technology makes us poor topic.  Today, I paid all my dues, and its a hefty RM550 in total expenditure (phone bills, internet bills, cable TV).  All in the name of being ‘technology savvy’… that doesn’t include my long term plan to replace my aging laptop and probably a new Digital Camera in the future.

Don’t you just miss when you paid only 30 cents for a bus ride to a friends house? I do….  It’s pay day, and I already feel a lot poorer…*sigh*