Technology rules our lives.
Bold statement? Not really. In 2021, it is just a true statement. It really hit me last week when we lost Internet connection for a bit. I was basically dead in the water.
Think about your cellphone. It is a way that you keep connected to the world. You phone, your emails, your text messages, your social media, your maps, your calendar, your photos. Those are all very important things, and they are all on your phone.
And I didn’t even mention that you can use your phone to Google pretty much anything. The collective knowledge of the history of the planet is available at your fingertips. It is pretty amazing.
If you lost your phone, you would lose a lot. Even just your contact information. I know my own phone number and my wife’s phone number. Anyone else? Nope. I don’t even know my dad’s cellphone number. I simply find a name in my phone and hit “call.”
It is almost too easy.
Television is another piece of this in 2021. The days of being beaten down by the evil cable companies is over. A growing number of people get their TV programing through the Internet. Streaming is a thing that most seem to be doing these days. In fact, I am not sure I have any friends who still have cable.
Now, pretty much anything you want to watch is available – for a price, of course. There are so many streaming services that to have them all would cost a small fortune. But like us, most people pick and choose what they really want and go with those. It saves us a lot of money every month, even though we have multiple services to stream content.
Many people, myself included, work from home these days. Sure, I go out and meet with people and take photos and cover events. But the nuts and bolts of my daily work is done from home.
And it is technology that makes that possible, of course. The Internet is pretty much all we need. Connect it to your computer that is load with all the programs you need and you are good to go. No commute, no packing a lunch, no worries about office equipment breaking down.
Technology has given us the power to help balance work and life.
But it is a crutch. I know it is for me. When the Internet goes out, I am pretty much stuck. My wife does have a mobile hotspot that can do in a pinch, but no Internet means no, well, anything. No work, no TV, no cellphone (unless you want to run on data).
Life kind of shuts down. And it is a very strange feeling. Even my books are on a device, and I am a voracious reader.
I also find myself wondering what I did before GPS. Like most guys, I am very hesitant to stop and ask for directions, so I love my GPS.
When I was delivering pizzas in high school, we had a big map over the sink in the kitchen of the restaurant. We would look at the map to chart the quickest route to our multiple destinations before deliveries. Eventually, you just memorized addresses and streets.
Now? I couldn’t deliver a pizza next door without my GPS. I have one on my Harley and rely on it like crazy. It does allow me to go far off the beaten path, which is great on long trips. Without it I would be literally lost.
Yes, technology rules our lives. And I don’t think that is a bad thing. Progress is what it is and we can’t stop it so we might as well jump on board. And by my calculations, it will be at least another 50 years before the machines rise and take over. By that time, I won’t be around to worry about it.
