Submitted by Alex Birch on Fri, 03/07/2008 - 15:01.
When you study the technological development over the last 50 years, one thing that strikes you is that products seem to include more and more features apart from their original function. Everything is maximized to perform just about anything, regardless if you need those functions or not. And more features inevitably leads to more complex products, even if they might appear simple on the surface.
Take the cell phone for example. 10 years ago, all you could do with such a phone was to make calls and possibly send text messages. Few people owned one and if they did, it was mostly used for urgent calls or business matters. Fast forward 5 years and people began playing games and taking photos with them. Today a cell phone is like a Swiss army knife: call, send messages, photograph, listen to music, hack potatoes, masturbate...it does everything. You know a product has lost its usefulness when all added features diminish or even make the original function less stable and trustworthy. It's like buying a car that suddenly stops in the middle of nowhere and you go: "Hey, at least I can light my cigarette while listening to the radio!"
The question is if we need all of these functions. Photographers will most likely buy a real digital camera at this point. There are cheap music players around of much higher quality. Playing games on a tiny screen seems like a waste of time. But because the companies market these products with new features, the consumers suddenly believe they somehow "need" all of these things and pay more and more for something that is rarely used for its original purpose.
And sooner or later we stand there with a broken cell phone and no one can fix it for us, because the technology has become so complex that you need professionals to solve the problem. So you buy a new one. Ever had a problem with your car? While the old Volkswagen models simply needed a new mechanical part, modern cars depend upon highly complex electronics, where if one tiny circuit is broken, the whole system breaks down. While finding the problem is hard in itself, replacing the whole system will make both you and your wallet cry. We've made ourselves dependent upon an abundance of technology, so that if something breaks (which it always does), we can't perform our daily duties.
While I'm not against technology and realize that more features can be positive, even though it means it's harder to fix and understand for us normals that aren't technicians on our spare time, I also believe that we're committing a mistake by simply replacing everything with flashy, complex technological systems that are fragile, expensive and often not very essential. Part of the problem with industrial society today is that we keep producing stuff no one needs. Electric toilets, blinking computer cases, remote controlled door locks, TVs with built-in DVD-computer-projector-popcorn-machine-video-game-radio functionality; all of this is abundant garbage that these companies shove down our throats to make us spend more.
I don't need 100 features on my cell phone, I need it to call and when I do so, it needs to be simple, functionable and reliable. Likewise with cars, computers, stereos and much else: first and foremost we need these things to serve their original, intended function. When they stop doing that reliably, it really doesn't matter if your cell phone can play the Blade Runner theme backwards, make your computer blink or your car track down your wife on a GPS-screen; you'll be as pissed as the rest of us who've experienced the same thing. We need to go back to the basics and do it right instead of being pretentious about things that make us look hip.
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Coming Back to Human Needs
We can solve this problem by focusing on human needs rather than on technology. Technology supposedly exists in order to satisfy some human need---therefore, if technology is problematic in some way (and we seem to have demonstrated here many instances in which it is), then we need only return to the question of: "What basic human need is truly at issue?" For instance, cars reflect a need for transportation; I read recently that over half of all urban automobile trips are under 4-5 km in distance, which would be a 7-8 minutes bike ride. Also, we could look at the ways in which we design cities: for surely, they may be designed such that long trips (by car or otherwise) are unnecessary.
Essentialistic technophobia is a mistake. Also, we shouldn't assume that mass-produced, mechanized technology is the ONLY kind of technology out there---there are social technologies as well. Excellent article, thank you for writing it and posting it.
Physical impact of cell phone radiation.
As of long-term studies about constant exposure to electromagnetic fields that I have read, the field that is emitted by a cell phone when sending back to the station does not actually harm you in form of heating up your brain cells (just consider the rms power the field has of a few hundred mW... this just does'nt work out with the degree per minute) but rather is ''disturbing'' your mental well-being. I read of symptoms like a decreased short time memory skills of the brain, headaches and general feelings of bodily unwell being. (no ref either, sorry)
I would call it as King_Dan posted 'disrupting our personal electromagnetic fields'. Well, but if I consider living in a city with all kinds of radiation in it, the normal cell phone radiation may just be negleted...
This doesn't mean that radiation of this kind is totally harmless. My uncle was around in malaysia and vietnam for building up industry firms. He had to telephone home through a satellite telephone (much more sending power). Constant exposure to this device produced a brain tumor on the right side of his brain (where he always held the phone) which brought him ultimately to death.
We agree - now what?
Even the unlearned masses largely agree that if the promise of technology is to simplify our lives, it is failing.
Technology warmed the planet, added pollutants to the atmosphere and oceans, affected life forms by changing the background magnetic field (including adding increased extremely low-frequency radiation), enabled nuclear weapons and created thousands of chemical compounds that can help or hurt life. One cannot conclude that the convergent effects — social, environmental, political, economic, legal, psychological — of these technological developments simplified living or our lives. Technology has failed to simplify our lives.
http://www.economist.com/debate/index.cfm?action=hall&debate_id=5
I kicked the habit..
On the subject of the mobile phone.
I have had several over a five year span and no finally after an 18 month contract I gave it up! I realized just how intrusive they can be. It felt like I got my 'privacy' back.
No more mobiles phones for me.
On the article above I think its key to remind some people again that much technology is unnecessary, unncesarrily complex and adds to stress in life.
Cell Phone Harms
Concerning physical harms a cell phone may cause, it has been proved that talking on the cell phone (with the phone next to your ear) will rise your brain's temperature at 1 degree for every 4 minutes.
Considering the normal bodily temperature of 36 degree Celsius, if you talk on the cell phone for more than 16 minutes, your brain temperature will reach 40 degrees, at which rate your brain cells will start to die.
That's right, depending too much on cell phones make your brain dead. Cheers.
Where was this work
Where was this work published? Do you have the reference?
Redundant.
Mr. Birch - I can't help but feel that articles such as this are extremely needless and redundant, and that we, as nihilists, should have moved far, far beyond such basic ideas as that technological complexity could have a negative effect on society. In fact, if you think about it, writing something as basic as this is simply fucking ridiculous and utterly superfluous.
No merit
Your argument is quite otiose and is without merit. You have incorrectly assumed that all visitors to this site are fundamental nihilist. Furthermore, you have assumed that every visitor here has read or injested the same material. Nothing could be further from the truth. The myriad people who visit this site come from all walks of life and are looking toward the future. They come here to learn, share and have thought provoking conversations.
Unsatisfied with the current direction of society, we hope to move it in a new direction. Critique is encouraged and expected; this is one way we learn. However, I find nothing constructive in your response. To go further, the use of an expletive does not add credibility to your rather sophomoric position.
You can't realistically
You can't realistically expect that everyone reading this site is an enlightened nihilist. You don't, right?
Maybe it's redundant for you, but all of the people mindlessly wandering through life need to be warned and reminded at every turn until they get it.
Disagree
I'll have to disagree here; this development is not very positive. Our lives are getting more stressed out thanks to over-complex shit no one needs. We need good technology we can rely upon, not flashy/artsy crap that will break constantly and cause us money and time.
Throw it out...
Nobody needs a cell phone. I've been in three car breakdowns in my life, and I just walked up to the nearest house and asked to use their phone. Theres no need to be leashed to the world around you. Get a home phone and leave the leash chains behind.
Some holistic doctors have even claimed that cell phones disrupt our personal electromagnetic fields, causing unnecessary stress and eventually disease (as a product of the stress). I can't really confirm if this is true, but who knows what research may discover in the next 50 years.