One can see a need, but can you always fill it?
Have any of you noticed that our brains have been taking a vacation? “No,” you say, “My brain is fully engaged with life most of the time!” But why is your brain so active all the time? Wasn’t the little computer we all carry around called a smartphone supposed to remedy at least some of our daily thought processes? I mean really, what do we have to remember? Begin to ask yourself a few simple questions and you might see a pattern beginning to emerge that for every question, every task, and every moment of the day we spend pondering something, there is either a website or app dedicated to answering our thoughts.
Who was in that movie? IMBD app. What is Jane’s Phone#? Check phone contacts. What is the location of the restaurant we ate at last week? Google Maps. How do I brew a cup of coffee? eHow.com. How many TD passes did Peyton Manning throw this last year? NFL.com. What time is my appointment at the doctors? iCal. How many calories did I eat for lunch yesterday? Livestrong app. What latte did I create yesterday? Starbucks app. How do you tie a bow tie? And yes, there is an app for that… no really, there seriously is an app for that.
So what are we doing with all this extra free time we have? Are our minds freer to contemplate the mysteries of the universe or wrestle with the philosophies of man? No, not really, but why is that? Because we are just as busy and tasked with the grind of daily life as ever. Why haven’t our little technological helpers released us from these mundane tasks? But instead seemed to have burdened us with more unnecessary distraction.
The funny thing is, the apps and websites do actually help us. They’re great and I love them. I want to find better solutions, which are faster, easier, and more reliable. But therein seems to lie the crux of the problem. We find a solution to a need and immediately want a better solution.
We find the perfect calendar/appointment app and no sooner then we figure out how to properly use it than we begin the search all over again. What is wrong with us? Is it the cyclical nature of human beings, to be unhappy with what we have in front of us, only to continue seeking some perfect, unattainable ideal? Rarely can we be happy with what we have for any extended period of time until we crave the next thing. So is there a solution to our problem? Can we change the nature of humans? Or is it through the next evolution of technology that we grow past this phase of ourselves and take on a new paradigm. Maybe, but only time will tell… Although, in the near future there might be App to help us with that!!!