Technology in Reverse

Let me introduce you to retarded technology. It’s the opposite of advanced technology. Advanced technology enables us to do useful new things or to do old things more efficiently. By contrast, retarded technology creates new and expensive ways of doing things that were once done simply and inexpensively. Worse, it encourages us to do things that don’t need doing at all. It has made waste respectable, elaborate, alluring and even fun.

Just the other week, Newsweek reported a boom in electronic books. The idea is to put books onto discs that you can plug into your customized book-displaying computer. Here’s a swell idea of retarded technology. On the one hand, you can buy $900 or $9,000 book-reading computer that you can feed with $20 discs of your favourite books. It’s cumbersome. If you take it to the beach, it gets clogged with sand. You can’t use it as a pillow. If it slips off the kitchen counter, it smashes.

On the other hand, you can buy an old-fashioned book. It’s cheaper, more mobile, less fragile and more durable. You can lend it, even to casual friends. If you don’t like it, you can stop reading without hating yourself for ever buying it. Losing it is not a traumatising event.

The pro-technology comeback is that computers will someday compress entire libraries onto chips or discs and, thereby, open vast vistas of information to almost anyone. The trouble with this is arithmetic and common sense. A school library with 2,000 books can theoretically serve 2,000 readers simultaneously. A school library with one computer terminal that can call up 200,000 books can serve only one reader at a time. The computer creates a bottleneck. Sure, the library can buy more computers, but they’re costlier and bukier than books. Finally, there’s common sense: do most people really need access to, say, the entire collection of the New York Public Library?

Here’s another example of technology racing backward: the video press release. In my business, we’re bombarded with press releases for products, politicians and policies. And now there are promotional videos. Instead of a 10-cent press release that took two days to prepare and 29-cents to mail, I get a $4.50 tape that cost $2 to mail and two months to prepare. I can read standard press release in 10 or 15 seconds before tossing 99 per cent of them. But the videos get tossed immediately. To view them would require finding a VCR and wasting five to 10 minutes watching. Sorry, no sale. The video costs more and does less.

I am not about to argue that all technology is bad. Heavens, no. Ours is an era of conspicuous technological upheaval. But the purported gains of new technology - rising incomes, greater productivity - seem to elude us. Somehow, the paradox must be explained. One theory holds that we’re still in the primitive stages of, say, the computer revolution whose full benefits will soon burst upon us. Maybe. (A corollary is that techno-dopes like me are holding back progress.)

But to this theory, I would add the notion of rearded technology. The gains from new technologies are plentiful and real. But the benefits are being crudely offset by a lot of technology-inspired waste. Technology is often misused because the reasons people embrace it can be fairly frivolous. To wit:

Social Status. Suppose your brother in Honolulu gets a car phone. He might even need it for work. Can you then be without one? Obviously not. Need isn’t an issue. (Since 1985, the number of cellular subscribers has leaped from 340,000 to about 8 million.)

Adult Play. New machines are often grown-up toys, successors to Legos and dolls. A woman I know well (my wife) recently exulted after creating invitation cards on her personal computer. (I dared not ask how long this took.) “I know I could have gone out and bought Hallmark cards,” she says. “But I’m so proud of myself. I’m thrilled.” In the office, computer mail has transformed idle chitchat into an all-day affair.

The Mount Everest Effect. Every new technology inspires the temptation to see what it will do – no matter how inane or time-consuming the task. This is the technological equivalent of “We’re climbing that mountain because it’s there.” Hence, the video press release.Entire areas of academic life (political science, economics and even history) are now increasingly given over to number crunching. Computers allow numbers to be easily crunched; so they are. Genuine thought is discouraged. The same thought-deadening process afflicts American managers.

The survival of stupid technology is ordained by ego and money. New technologies often require a hefty investment. Once investments are made, they cant’n easily be unmade. To do so would be embarrassing. Old and inexpensive ways of doing things are eliminated to help pay for new and expensive methods. Retarded technology becomes institutionalized and permanent.

This is routinely denied, because people won’t admit they’re frivolous or wasteful. One survey of cellular-phone owners found that 87 per cent said their phones raised their productivity by an average of 36 per cent. More than half (54 per cent) said the phone had improved their marriages. Imagine if these gains were generalized to the entire population: our economy’s output would instantly leap from $6 trillion to $8 trillion; divorce rates would plunge, and “family values” would triumph. What we need are cellular subsidies so everyone can have one.

Apple Computer recently announced Newton, the first of a generation of handheld “personal digital assistants”. Newton will, Apple says recognize your handwriting when you scribble something on its small display scree. This seems impressive. You scrawl “Joe Smith”, and Newton calls up “Joe Smith” from its memory and tells you Joe’s phone number and anything else you’ve put in Joe’s tiny file. Just like a Rolodex.

Hey, maybe a Rolodex is better. It’s cheaper. How about a standard notebook or address book? They already accept handwriting. Even fancy address books cost only $15 or $20. Apple says Newton (which will also act as a pager and send messages over phone lines) will be priced “well under $1,000.” It should be a smashing success.

(R.J. Samuelson, “Science and Technology Today”, St.Martin’s Press, NY)

6.5 Look through the list of words and phrases below. Tick (V) the word combinations you are confident about and cross (X) the ones you need to revise.

o to store/transfer/interprete/retrieve information

o human-machine interaction

o technology-oriented subjects

o information-related disciplines

o to absorb a theory

o a system analysis phase

o a system design phase

o a system development phase

o artificial intelligence techniques

o high-frequency piezoelectric transducers

o pyroelectric thin materials

o home-purpose devices

o energy conversion devices

o direct energy converter

o conductive fluid

o advanced/retarded/waste technology

o technology-inspired waste

o technological upheaval

6.6 For further information on the biographies of famous scientists and their achievements use Famous Scientists WebQuest

http://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/webwebquestel.html

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