#ej12

2025.4.2 東京 お台場　ショーラン後のレッドブルF1カー

走行予定だけど走らなかったHONDA F1初優勝のRA272

I am so frustrated with technology right now.  All week I have experienced one Apple product failure after another.  First it was my iPhone, then my MacbookPro, and now both my iPad and iPod are having issues.  I've had it up to here with electronics...I just need a short break from it all! 

It occurred to me yesterday that there was a time, not so long ago, when we all lived just fine without the Internet and cell phones.  I wish we could go back to the late 80s for just a week or so.  Things were just as awesome before Twitter and Facebook and e-mail and text messages and talking on the phone while on the go!  Heck, maybe things were even better back then.  Technology may help us in some ways, but it also makes things SO MUCH MORE COMPLICATED!!!  And sometimes the complications involved end up wasting more time than had we just kept doing things the way we had always done them. 

This whole thing reminds me of something Jeff Jarvis said in class one day.  While I don't remember what he said word for word, the gist of what he said was that we should always be looking for the next innovation opportunity.  By doing so we will continue to progress...and, of course, possibly discover a source of revenue.

Unfortunately, he made this point at the tail end of the class because I really wanted to question it.  It's not that I don't agree with the fact that innovation can make you rich, because I do.  What I find bothersome is the colonialist perspective most business minds have: "Let's take something "good enough" and make it better (despite the possible drawbacks/side effects) and make a lot of money."  Just because something is new, doesn't mean it's better.  Before Twitter and Facebook, people were just as happy (or just as miserable) as they are now.  People in our country (and around the world) consume too much and are wasteful.  We always want the newest, hottest thing and are quick to forget whatever we have replaced. 

After class I brought this point up to Jennifer McFadden, a Tow Knight adjunct professor, who said perhaps it was my cultural background that makes/helps me see things this way.  To that I agreed.  But when I thought about it later I realized it's probably actually Jarvis' culture that makes HIM see things this way.  (Why do we always turn these things back on the ethnic minority, pointing out how they are so "different" from the "norm?")