Humankind’s love affair with technology is not a new development. At the beginning of the twentieth century, advances in industrial technology were touted as the solutions to problems of crime, poverty, ignorance and the boredom of ordinary daily life. La Tour Eiffel, nicknamed “the Lady of iron,” rose as a celebrated symbol of technology, built mostly offsite and then assembled in the heart of Paris with amazing speed, at least for its time. The Eiffel Tower watched over two world wars. The “great” war, later called World War 1, reached a destructive intensity unknown before that time due to new technology.  World War 2 started as a resource grab to build up industry and overcome the recession following the first one.

In 1970 a book was published by Alvin Toffler called Future Shock that described the stress and disconnectedness that comes when change occurs too rapidly. It was even made into a film for those too overwhelmed with information overload to read. Although I do not agree with the premise that most of the social problems in our society are due to inability to accommodate rapid change, I do find some of the problems that it causes troubling.  For example, because it is much easier to produce new learning material and new software applications—even though the improvement made is  out-weighed by the new learning curve.

During the seventies, I also  recall learning a new ‘language’ based on simple English phrases that would allow me, a relatively unsophisticated high school student, to communicate commands to a computer. It was called BASIC. This language is one of those dinosaurs of the early information age that has not yet gone extinct, although it is relatively unknown today.

I have lived through the birth of multiple changes and find that most people do not bother to learn any kind of technology in depth, but concentrate on finding the newest, latest app to make their life easier. As we accelerate towards a rate of change in technology that makes much learning obsolete within a shorter period of time, the demands of constant relearning are bound to create difficulties. Although we have the world of information at our fingertips, we do not often trust what we see, hear or read. To tell the truth, research was in many ways easier before the Internet. There were fewer places to look and published works had to pass the review of gatekeepers, such as editors and publishers, which helped to cut down on inaccuracies, at least those that were not wide-spread accepted ones.

What is the price to be paid for the luxury of being able to have so much information available anywhere there is a wi-fi signal. So, many replicated articles are churned out that we simply let AI compose new content based on past works. I’ve faced a rapid review of words, images and videos that blur together until I’ve realized that I need to take a break from this flood of information. At least that is what the apps on my phone and computer tell me.

Artwork – Book Shell Architecture Design. Wallpaper Shelf.com