Something I Noticed About Technology — My Own Friendly Reminder of What I Didn’t Know I Already Have

Everyday Technology Is The Piece of Luxury That Is Ignored and Often Taken for Granted As of The 21st Century

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

There’s good and bad with every piece of technology or equipment that’s been made so far, but the good always seems to be more apparent.

What I’ve realized (as it’s a realization rather than a revelation) is how I took technology for granted because it’s been given to me and then considered using it to be second nature.

Nothing new so far, however, there might be some things you need to start keeping in mind next time you’re using your mobile phone or anything technology-related (you’ll see me focusing on Voice Assistants in this example.)

My everyday mobile device usage

As a reminder, I’m using a mobile device on an everyday basis. While given all the benefits I’m already taken for granted, it still looks unusual to me how this piece of luxury -VA technology- is equipped and how much work it can help me get done — Even if it still seems normal.

• I’m communicating with AI-based services, in this case, it’s a voice assistant. I do it for multi-tasking, rapid communicating, event or reminder entry onto my calendar, and all sorts of other stuff, etc.
• It became faster to share my plans with others and take care of small tasks while I’m walking or busy doing the dishes.
• I check messages on Whatsapp as, of now, it’s my major tunnel of communicating and reaching out to people. This includes future business partners, distant family members, etc.
• I also meditate a lot using a meditation app called Medito. I’m doing this regularly and I’m also using different meditations with YouTube’s help. It’s good to have all these choices.
• Social media is taking less time off of my day. I usually have 1-hour max of mixed social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.. (mainly to document my process, engage with the community, and share good content I found or else I made).

And there’s a lot more; of course, it does get messy and very uncontrollable at certain times. That’s where I’d spend about 4 - 7+ hours on social media apps in a day; it happens. I get back to where I was and just let go of the unhelpful behavior that follows, self-defeat.

Here are some statistics on mobile phone usage across the planet presented by Leftronic.

This is just to show how mobile devices have already ruled the world; so, there needs to be no hiding over that area.

• 5.13 billion is the exact number of people who own mobile devices. That is 66.5% of the world’s population.
• In contrast, 2.71 billion people own a smartphone, so that’s 35.13% of people
• There still exists one portion who have not yet joined this gang (as it usually happens), their numbers are 2.4 billion. These people will definitely pick up someday, but who knows when?

Photo by Kvistholt Photography on Unsplash

Frustrations and few drawbacks of using Technology (VA in this case)

It’s important to consider physiological and psychological arguments in this discussion as you’re learning about technology X human interaction (when they’re crossing roads with each other).

If technology -or anything meant to make you do less of what can on your own- are making you lazier then obviously you don’t want to keep having it for too long right?

You want to have control over your major areas of life and also make sure you stay healthy rather than lazy or unresponsive.. well it might happen.

Stuff start to get less shiny

Like any object, VA loses its shine as it becomes less attractive and more irritating. Whenever you use AI-based services (cloud storage, voice assistants…) it might not be exactly what you wanted nor what asked for.

If you’re trying to call Google assistant so many times before it gets you; well, that’s normal .

Google’s VA isn’t bad and the other companies aren’t having theirs better either. They all need work, which, is never finished. That’s some really good news! And also bad ones as well. You’re still frustrating over G Assistant not hearing your message.

For the future, you can hope to have much better systems; these are the ones that are there to help, make life easier for you, and make you get more things done easily. No utopia here but for honest foresight which wasn’t necessarily required; it’s always here for you to take.

Treat technology as it needs to be, that’s a tool. It’s not meant to make your status cleaner or more flourished. And it doesn’t figure out your life for you, just to add it at the end.

Share this article, I’ll see you in the next one.