I think the next big thing in technology is to develop ways in which those less "techno-literate" will be able to use it without it causing too much effort. This, however, isn't going to happen in a day. It takes time, but having studied a technology related field, I know for a fact that big things are coming to help people use the ever more complex things.
Technology will be everywhere, and most of our daily lifes will be interacting with technology, if you think you're doing it now, wait for the big breakout of wearable technology.
I see it as not a challenge for individuals, but those in the field. We can't expect people to know everything, therefore, the experts will have to figure it out.
As for time as a resource aspect, using technology should be fun, hopefully most of time it is. Therefore, does it really matter if fun things take much of your time? Not all technology is fun though. Hopefully that will change also.
Well, my point being, "techno-literacy" should be left to those who invent it. The brain will take care of the rest. Awesome things happen in people's brains when they get to learn using technology :)
At a consumer level that is certainly true for companies selling products!
This is about your ability to use technology, in whichever form, to somehow achieve your objectives.
There are constant trade offs involved though: if you are not aware of those, shiny new technology can actually stand in the way of achieving your objectives.
If your objective is to have a little fun and a new gadget/ site provides that, great...
Technology is very much a double edge sword and can come with many costs that most people are not aware of.
I think the public health hazard of the next decade for instance will be technological distraction addiction.
As with anything, the dose makes the poison.
A bit of social media is great but if it takes over the lives of teenagers to the point that they physically get sick if you take away their mobile something went wrong.
The dose makes the poison.
The problem with the tech sector right now is that they are in a digital arms race to capture human attention.
The money involved is obscene and the lengths technology will be abused to make profit from human attention will be equally obscene.
I consider these principles actually as important as a self-defence course if you live in a rough neighbourhood!
Rather than physical assault to rob your money,
these companies are using technology
to mentally assault you to rob your attention...
Technology is a great slave but a terrible master...
Well it depends much on the company I suppose. I don't my see my future as enslaving people, while developing new technological solutions. I see it as making things possible. Of course there are trade offs, you need to sell, so you need to make it more appealing, more capturing, maybe even hooking the potential client. However, I believe many people who develop technology still want to better the world through it.
I see the problems also, but I hope it is more of a growing pain of the new world than a phenomena that gets worse. To be honest, I don't know. However, I myself will work towards creating a better future through technology. How, well I don't know yet. Small steps will need to be taken.
I still want to assign the responsibility to the developers of technology to make technology better fit the everyday life of people. Of course I as well am a bit concerned of the fact that children are stuck to their mobile phones at ages when I was playing hide and seek or what not.
I might've gotten carried away here :) Not implying that all technology is evil. But the power of technology is very much something we need to be aware of since it can be just as addictive and life altering in negative ways as drugs and alcohol. The dose makes the poison...
Technology is not evil in and of itself. It is the people who twist it to destructive purposes that are evil. One example is the gaming industry where some of the companies have done research on addictive behavior. They intentionally design the games to capitalize on those behavior patterns. When they are marketing to kids, that is evil because they are promoting addictive behaviors which may re-emerge in spousal, or chemical abuse.
Technology is a tool, it allows great multiplier effects and efficiencies.
Applying technology to sell itself is obviously a no brainer.
Biologically we still operate under scarcity principles, which make us think hoarding tools is a great strategy, you never know when you might need them right? But what our brain consistently overlooks is the cost over the life of the tool, in various ways, to own and maintain it. If you had a few stone axes you needed daily, that was OK, nowadays though...
Marketing has since a few decades figured out these blind spots in our brains and is exploiting them for all they can.
A great example is the whole subscription service, etc.
You will note everyone (like Micro$!$!@FT )wants to switch to a monthly "low" subscription fee. If you start to look what that costs you over 3 years say, that is HUGELY EXPENSIVE, much more than you would pay for any product.
And technology marketing definitely knows how to push our buttons.
Is it evil? Of course not, but like any complex system, a lot of people merely responding to incentives can as an unintended consequence definitely produce evil outcomes.
The whole production model of electronics for instance is clearly insane from a resource perspective.
I agree with this. I don't want to be apart of the mobile game business. That is usually all about getting people to play your game. They call addicting the player as making the user experience better, since the player is so engaged. They use such things as click this a hundred times and you'll receive something, and each time you press it you hear this sound which is like "ca-ching!" and you start drooling like a Pavlov's dog each time you hear the bell.
Hi Tex!
Yes and I would not be surprised if other games and app developers are very aware of which buttons to push.
Specifically these free to play games can end up 5 -6 times what a normal storebought game would cost. They hook you with great gameplay just enough so you get into it and then you hit a wall where you have to pay to pay. Things can get out of hand. (so I've heard ...) EDIT was viewing this post in Busy.org not immeadiately visible I already answered this post.
In a way I'm a stranger to the notion of technology being poisonous. Might be that I'm so addicted to it myself, but then again. We've been talking about how technology destroys things since, I don't know the telephone? I wonder what the evil was back then, no exercise because you could just call the other person in the other town?
Anyway, I think in the future technology will become more of a symbiosis to us. Some have already started with making themselves cyborgs and so on. I, however, hope I never need to start implanting technology, unless it saves my life, like a heart pump or something. Well of course I don't want that either.
How old are you may I ask? Decades is ok.
If you are pretty young, I think you might be so immersed in it you might not have anything to contrast against.
I am closing in on 40 so I remember a time before life with a Smartphone (actually I was one of the nuts who had a "smartphone" in 2005 already, not much happening on it I can tell ya .
Try an experiment if you dare :) : no tech for a day.
Switch off your phone leave it in a drawer and don't use any PC, tablet, television, etc. and see how you react.
(Hint if you get bored, there is such a thing as a library, with these things called books ;) or you could go out and talk to someone)
We become so conditioned by technology, you might actually experience withdrawal symptoms.
I'm 26 years old. I'm part of the last generation who saw the less technical world and remembers it. But I've also grown up with technology. I got my first own computer when I was 14. Probably a year before that I started using computers actively.
Anyway, technology does fill your life, but it's not always bad. I mean, it depends. Some people get sucked into mobile phones and can't help but message people all the time. For me it kind of seems like a burden at times, but that is why I don't try to interact with everyone. I'm slightly introverted, but not completely. I enjoy alone time. And I think it is also possible. I can choose not to interact with people when I don't want to. Technology just makes it very easy when I do.
As for getting bored, yeah, I think I do get bored without technology quite fast, but I also love those things called books. I don't like reading stuff on screen if I have the chance to choose. BUT thanks to technology I can read so many other things that I never had access to before.
Double edged sword. Anyway, initially my point in my first comment was, that the current direction of technology is to make technology less of a burden. We will start having more and more technology which we don't even realize affects our daily life. The idea is often referred to ubiquitous computing. It means that technology will be everywhere, and the objective is to make things invisible to the user. Get away from the desktop, into the real world, active participation will be irrelevant. Well, we will see how this pans out. I think the times ahead are amazing :)
Until skynet. ;)
Of course after Skynet it's game over... :)