If you were to go back in time and live as the people back then did gain an understanding of how things were done in that particular era. You would probably be more grateful for living in the current era, where doing things has become so simplified.

In today’s world, less effort is required to achieve what might have been regarded as the hardest of tasks. Some people may disagree with my statement, alluding to the fact that technology is a vicious beast that has taken over humanity.

One might argue that the use of technology has introduced a lot of issues in our society. The traditional face to face communication or conversation is slowly fading away, family members would rather have a conversation on instant messengers while in the same room.

Unfortunately, the same situation is also observed in the workplace where instant messengers and email are fast becoming the undeniable way of communication. Employees and employers are stuck in the same vicious cycle in which direct communication is no longer “a thing” no matter the importance or the priority of the matter, people feel lazy to stand up and walk across the room to another colleague. They would rather “text” or “pop a mail”.

If that’s how you feel, I can understand where you are coming from. But regardless of those disadvantages you have to admit that whether you like it or not, technology does affect you and with each year it keeps on changing and evolving and if you choose to stay in the past you will probably be replaced by a machine in the next couple of years.

Life without technology has its downfalls, taking up more time, money and effort.

I’ve listed a few of these downfalls vs the current use of technology:

• Long queues vs online services: nowadays we ditch the long queues for online support
• Mail vs instant messaging/ electronic mails
• Paper vs computers/smartphone: the latest technology provides better security, putting access control on who gets to view it and can be shared with people all over the world
• Smartwatch vs regular watch: we agree that the main functionality of a watch is to tell time, but smartwatches do more, we can literally monitor our health and even link it to our phones to answer calls and read texts.

The key points listed above affect the way you use your time and as often said ‘Time is money’, the more time you spend on a singular item, the more time is consumed and depending on the effort you have applied you would most probably be drained. I, on the other hand, am a technology ‘baby’ and I want to focus on the good side.

How will this unstoppable force affect the future then? What good could possibly come from this force? And how do we tame it?

The answers to the first two questions are all around us rapidly taking place. I am currently fascinated by a couple of dominating technologies from virtual reality, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, to name a few.

Currently making headlines on the home development space, is 3D printing, not only did it sort out the issue of time but also has a major impact on the financial side of things. The first family that was recorded to live in the 3D printed home was in 2018. The four-bedroom house was 20% less money to build using this technology taking 54 hours to print.

However, an additional couple of months were added for additionals such as windows, roof, etc. has proven to be the faster option. We also find the same 3D printing technology in the health space (3D bioprinting) although currently it’s being used to print tissues and organs to help research drugs and pills, It’s definitely something to watch out for.

Virtual reality (VR) is also making a vast impact, whereby potential buyers are able to tour different types of houses from the comfort of their own homes. Not only does this save travel costs but time efficiency as well, by clicking from home to home instead of travelling a specific amount of Kilometers.

VR is also being used in the health space for patients as a calming mechanism, although it is still experimental it has been proven to be helpful, taking the discomfort away and giving them hope for a better tomorrow. There are many other uses for VR in the medical space.

From the technologies that are mentioned below, you will see the impact and the reasons behind the advancements:

• Simplified processes - personally this would be the major key reason, why would I possibly leave the norm for something more tedious.
• Bring rapid delivery to the markets
• Bring forth knowledge and understanding
• Cost reduction
• Impacting and literally saving lives
• Reduced time and effort

In regards to some negative opinions towards technology, I don’t think you could stop this force of technology or even tame it even if you tried as it has become the norm.

Why would you write a letter that would take weeks to deliver and months to get a response, if you have the option of just making a quick phone call that would give you a response straight away. This would even cost you your job, your business or even your relationships. Better yet, nowadays we have the option to video call. Things are really moving at a fast pace, as an individual you literally can’t afford to be left behind.

To wrap this up, I think it is valid to say that we are in the future, the future of our grandparents, the future you thought of yesterday has hugely shaped today. We only look forward to tomorrow and we are looking into affecting that in our today, so the future is exciting indeed!

Every profession should be expectant for a technology shift. I just hope home affairs is able to keep up.

😜

Nomcebo Nomcebo