Where's technology taking us?

I've come to the realisation that even with all the technology that surrounds us, we still do things, still think, still behave as though we were in the pen and paper world. Instead of picking up a pen and carefully jotting things down, we're sitting in front of a keyboard and typing.

This has its problems. With spell checkers, we aren't careful any longer. We write and squiggly lines appear where our mistakes are. With the right-click of the mouse, or even without our involvement, the computer's intelligence fixes our mistakes. It suggests grammar where it's poorly written. Our handwriting is shot.

Like TV robs us of the ability to think, the computer does the same thing. We may think that we're being very productive, multi-tasking, writing ten different documents at the same time, switching unconsciously from one to the other, getting work done, but it seems that we're no further ahead than our great grand parents were when they had to painstakingly write out each letter, thinking ahead since there was no backspace key.

The Internet has made things doubly bad. I remember walking through the library at the McDonald Harrington building at McGill University. Sometimes it would take a few days to find the information that I needed, searching through catalogues, wading through pages and pages to eke out a morsel of information. Then working on that paper with a dictionary close by and a thesaurus not too far as well. It was a teacher at Waterloo, Mr. Kiyo Azumi, in Philosophy 101 that taught me how to use a thesaurus and he didn't use the dictionary styled one. It was a Roget's thesaurus. Cumbersome yet effective in what it taught me. Not just the ability to find a word, but how to think about the message and in trying different terms, try to narrow down on what I was actually trying to say.

I don't use a physical thesaurus these days, but I still refer to one on-line. I struggle with English on most days, but I respect the pain that I went through, leaving my apartment late in the evening because I had to get to the library to find something. I couldn't turn on my computer, search the web or e-mail a friend.

Not to say that there's anything wrong with the computer, per-se. I spend an inordinate amount of time on-line, after all, I work in that industry, but I miss the relaxed slower pace brought on by writing things slowly, one word at a time, sometimes taking days to form a thought.

Business at the speed of thought wrote Bill Gates. I've never read the book, but I intend to one day. I think it, then it happens. Just like that. Rules are meant to be broken. In this world of the thousand things, there is no wrong. There is not right also, just shades of things.

Our physical bodies were not made to sit in front of a terminal for the better part of the day. There's a reason why working with our hands is so satisfying. For me, a runner, the physical exertion of a long run stresses the muscles, the joints, the lungs but is ultimately very good for the body. The work of our hands is priceless. We're fascinated by the things we can make. The paintings we render. Even in technology, the visual appeal of Apple products is due to the manufacturing process. Cars are engineered. Our living spaces appeal not only to the eyes or the mind, but our hands, sense of smell, and our ears.

Slowing down is very hard to do in this world of a thousand things. Our to-do lists behave like festering virus. Growing uncontrollably eating up precious time. Things never seem to move off the list, they climb up and down in a never ending struggle to finally reach the top and launch off the list. But they never do. More things rain down from the skies, occupying the top rungs, pushing everything else down and dooming them to life sentences on the never ending list.

With all the advances of technology, we've done a lot. It's now possible to borrow books from the public library on your reader device while flying ten thousand feet above the earth. Better still, you can talk to loved ones half-way around the planet in real time. Right now, that is. You sit at home, inundated by a thousand television station channels to watch absorbing five to ten seconds of each as you click rapidly from one story to another. From one disaster to another. From one country to another. It's all about speed and possibilities. The art of the possible, not the enjoyable or do-able.

So now we can claim that we've seen more of the world than our ancestors ever dreamed they would. Columbus wasn't an adventurer, more ten year olds have seen more in this world than he ever did. These kids may not have left their living rooms, but they have definitely seen them in their minds. And that's where they go to most of the time. They visit places in their minds, on the screen, but not physically. Walking takes time, clicking a button a mere second.

And so the question, dear reader, is; has this new technology of the computer, the Internet, this digital era, having replaced some of the things you were doing, such as picking up a pen and writing to a dear friend, or walking a block to experience the chaos outside, or lying quietly in a dark room, eyes closed, mind floating between what's immediate and urgent, and what doesn't count as life, feeling the dark, has this new technology improved you and your life.

Take out that to-do list and wipe it clean. Read it once, and those items that are really old, remove them permanently.