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| Save time | 78% | 210 votes | Total: 270 votes | |
| Waste time | 22% | 60 votes |
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Add to FavoritesI am one of those who has to believe that technology saves time, but I've also seen how it can waste time, it all depends on what the circumstances are. I happen to carry a Blackberry, and I suffered a mini-stroke about 8 years ago that severely hampered my ability to remember things, and I use my Blackberry to the furthest extent of it's capabilities, daily. I kid around with my co-workers and colleagues that it's my electronic brain, and that may be so; that is as long as the brain is not damaged. Let me explain...
I start my day by checking to see what events are scheduled; work, doctor's appointments, etc., and I'm off to the races. All throughout the day, as I get a new phone number or e-mail address from a client or account rep, I put that in my Blackberry (Some have called it a Crackberry) and I trust that when I get home that night I will have that information on my hand-held device and that I will be able to store it on my laptop through Microsoft Outlook. I schedule three appointments for the next 10 days and put those events into my Blackberry again, trusting that when I need it there, I will have the place for the meeting and who the contact person is.
As I'm driving from one appointment to another throughout the day, I (of course) use my bluetooth headset while talking to one of my staff in the field. (Some states require headsets by law now). I also have an HTC Dash for my personal cell phone which I use exclusively when communicating with my brother in Seattle, and I discover that my father is gravely ill and I need to come and visit him, my brother e-mail's me a PDF document which the doctor gave him at his last visit. I am able to view the document and schedule a time to book a flight to Seattle within the next week.
Those are all very rosy scenarios which demonstrate the wonderful attributes of technology in our lives and how it benefits us. I have seen the opposite happen though. When technology is working FOR us it is beautiful, but when it fails it reminds us of how much time it is truly saving us. And the worst-case scenario for some is the dreaded "BOMB" on the computer screen. For you Mac users who have had their hard drive crash, you know the feeling: you have just lost all of your data on your computer, including all of your banking programs and you are going to have to start again from scratch. OUCH. Here is where the time wasted starts to add up. The good news is that in most cases, if you do your banking or pay your bills on-line, you haven't lost much since all of that data is stored on the bank or creditors website, but how do you know where to find that elusive login page again? The time involved in book-marking all of your favorite and important websites is overwhelming especially as our reliance on these types of technology increases.
The important thing to remember when dealing with new types of technology or anything where the time saved and the time that could be lost or wasted is represented by a huge chasm, is redundancy in backups. I alluded to it earlier; banking sites and your wireless company have already started the process for you, Verizon Wireless to name one. Ever lost phone numbers that were entered into your wireless phone only to be gone when the phone goes into the pool with you later that week at a friend's house? Verizon Wireless has built into their service a backup service that can SAVE you huge amounts of time and headaches, it's called Backup Assistant and it saves your address book on the VZW server every night without you even having to remember. This is just one example, but remember, redundancy is the key, multiple backups on different media. I have been in the recording business for the last 8 years and that is the rule of thumb for us. Triple and Quadruple redundant systems are the norm in this industry.
So you see that technology saves time, but you can also see how it can waste time, it all depends on what the circumstances are. nonetheless, it has become the industry we love to hate, but look where it has brought us.
Learn more about this author, P.G. Day.
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Waste time
Technology, waste of time? Hell yes, how often during the day have you stopped working to look up something on the Internet to only be sidetracked moments later by the latest news story? The innocent desire to see what you missed during Barack's latest speech is quickly lost when you see "Kanye at MTV" leading to frenzied google searches to see exactly what he said and all the juicy details concerned with it. In addition to all the distractions on the web today, there is the new threat from video games and social networking sites which are becoming ever more addicting. In the case of video games we see games like World of Warcraft which demands massive amounts of time investment to progress anywhere in the game. When we look at social networking sites we see all of those ridiculous games that we swore we would never play yet 2 hours later still are (Farmville anyone).
While I feel that video games and social networking sites ARE the main wastes of time to the majority of us who have a hard time tearing ourselves away (myself included) I still believe that even when necessary in today's times they lose more time than they supposedly save. Take for example sites that schools use to post homework assignments and to host discussions amongst students. These sites are inherently down whenever a student needs it and thus forces them to check again at a different time, just giving even more excuses to get side tracked.
In fact its not just the Internet and video gaming that's taking up time, its those long hours spent in front of the TV watching the latest episode of Lost or Gossip Girl that is taking away from the lives of people today. If we were to take away all these "advances in technology" and reduce us to working in the fields, we would be a more productive society. We are living in a materialistic world in which technology is just one more thing to flaunt and strut about with. After all how much time do YOU spend on the computer or latest HALO game? (I know I spend way to much as is) If we were to add up all the time that we spend on the computer, even reading this poorly written article for example, we see that we have wasted time that we could have been using for something more productive.
Although technology is a waste of time, it is not our faults that we have fallen so helplessly heads over heels for it. We have been taught that technology is good and that to say other wise is hearsay. However, believing that technology is good and nothing else is wrong, if anything technology is a double edged sword. For all those minutes you saved, typing up and emailing that letter to a friend rather than mailing in via post office, you probably were browsing the web looking up the hottest youtube vids or surfing the web. How can we claim that technology is a time saver if even when given free time, we merely waste it on pointless activities?
Learn more about this author, Ryan Tashima.
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