Technology can be a two-edged sword: it can be used for either good or evil. That is true of almost any kind of technology. It is not humanity's pathway to godhood, nor is it humanity's pathway to Hell. For the most part, I like technology: I like it when we figure out how to do something new, something different; it's neat. However, it has become painfully obvious to me that technology should be used with extraordinary caution. I know a number of people who play on-line computer games; they get sucked into an imaginary world and do nothing but sit in front of their computers for hours on end (I used to play computer games, but bailed after Baldur's Gate II when it was becoming obvious to me just how much of a timesink the game was.) Other examples abound: here, in the United States, technology has become virtually a crutch. Life has become too easy for the younger generations, thanks to technology. There seems to me to be a great schism between one's education years and one's life in "the real world." And with each passing year, this schism is growing wider. Everything is handed to one on a silver platter while one is in high school, or in collegemy God, even grade-schoolers have cellular phones now. Then, real life comes along and throws a knockout punch which one is ill-equipped to handle, no matter the schooling one has. In other words, I think education and technology are over-rated.

Take electronic money, for instance. I've seen commercials now (I'm sure you've seen them, too) where there is a store where all the consumers are performing a choreographed dance to the sound of music and swiping credit cards. Then, one poor fool tries to pay for his selection with cash and the whole dance is disrupted. Of course, this sap, sees the error of his ways and pulls out a credit card and the dance begins anew. I would like to point out that there is a downside to electronic money, a very real human cost. If our entire economy goes electronic where everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) is paid for electronically by credit card or Paypal or through the Internet, we are essentially putting beggars out of business and sentencing the homeless to even more misery than what they already suffer. One can't take pity on a homeless man and give him two electronic bucks. It's not like he's going to have a credit card reader. The entire homeless population will be completely divorced from our economy. At least with cash in one's wallet one can give a homeless man a buck or two so that he might be able to buy himself a loaf of bread and have something to eat for a night. Obviously that does not solve all the homeless man's problem, but it certainly is a far sight better than forcing him to starve because he has no access to cyber-space, the new home of all currency.

To be sure, I am not a Luddite; I don't think we should throw our technology away and retreat to the wilderness. I only wish to stress that technology often can have unintended consequences which are not always for the good. For myself, I do use electronic currency at times, but for the reasons stated above, I will never go "cash-free."

Learn more about this author, Matthew Ryan.
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