h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know this is a cheap and easy shot but Computers.

Don’t get me wrong computers can do many great things, such as H2G2, but that was not the original aim. We were promised that they would allow us to have more leisure time. Have they? Have they Belgium! So they fail because they do not meet the promised goal and have only succeed in other areas such as:

1) Increased stress - we all have to do more work even more quickly and then it goes wrong!

2) Gainful employment - just think how many people work in the IT Support and IT in general.

3) Made some people very rich.

Many years ago I spent a few weeks as a Junior in an invoicing department of a large company. Dozens of ladies were employed to type, to stuff enevelopes and operate huge lumbering telex machines. Now a computer can churn out the same same paper work, inputted by one person in a fraction of the time but I don't know if that is a good thing. Those ladies loved being part of a large office and all the inter-action that went with it and the wage packet was a huge help to their family. I know it is "progress" but, as you say, we are now expected to work quicker and harder and quite often alone on the computer that replaced all those people.

I see computers as a mixed blessing. On the one hand, they've opened up a whole new world of creativity, communications (for those that knew how to before), and amazing possibilities just about everywhere...

On the other, the arrival of this technology has sped up our evolution out of the Industrial Revolution mould that we've been stuck in for the past 100 years....although what's going to replace it hasn't been decided upon yet.....and yes, there are MANY solutions out there. In the meantime, the speed of change in IT in specific has quickly rendered some older technologies obsolete overnight and leaving thousands, if not millions, wondering what they're going to do with themselves.

I do love computer technology and what it can do. I've almost turned into a Mac Evangelist. What few have looked at amidst the marvels of this technology is the human cost. Shifting from technology to people as the source of importance. Right now, society is badly out of balance (some would argue it's been there for centuries) and needs to return to the People-First, Technology-Second orientation. Contrary to popular belief, PEOPLE designed and built all of this stuff, but those who built it love playing with it....those who use it simply want it to work properly every time....and sometimes take ages to learn it well enough to make that happen.

The Industrial Revolution FORCED the hand of thousands, changed society radically and caused many of the social structures we have today to come into being. Those structures aren't able to handle the current change because they were built for a much slower, density-reduced world that no longer exists (sure, there are fragments of it lying around and still functional, but they're dying out). Technology adaptation and adoption is also forcing the hands of millions, although much more slowly. Sometimes this is a financial stretch (to buy the technology and hope it stays current) and other times it's a labour-market stretch (there's none of the old work left; we must learn this new stuff).

Fruitbat

Well, this is just the human factor. That is like with house work, we still use as much time on house work as before we had dishwashers and clothes dryers and all. But instead of thinking "Now I can get all my laundry done in a hour instead of 5" We just see it as an opportunity to buy 5 times as much clothes. The same with computers, people still work 8 hours a day, but they get a lot more work done in those 8 hours. Presuming they know what a computer is at all.

I agree, it seems we don't want that much leisure time. Only after having forgotten how much we have and have gained over the last 100 years. Think about how long people had to work 50 or a 100 years ago! After that they had enough to do at home to make it a place you can live a bit and barely any time left. They probably were exhausted enough as well and rather go to bed. People see many more friends these days. Go more often to cinemas and theatres, festivals, holiday, etc. The time we've gained is also spent in traffic jams, supermarket queues, school runs, etc. Sometimes you can blame computers, sometimes you can only blame yourself...

You're right, it is a cheap shot. The computer has given us the 'paperless office' which now generates three times as much paper as the old kind because everything has to have a 'hard copy' just in case. It's given us mail-merge which takes four hours longer to master than it would have taken if you just wrote everything with a biro. And who could now live without the 'ely' you get when after three hours hard work your beloved machine informs you that the programme has performed an illegal error and will now shut down whether you've saved or not? Speaking as the owner of a very expensive paperweight, which is what my other computer has become as a result of microsoft's genius (just don't try going backwards from windows 2000!) I love'em.