Are you tired of using technology? I for one say no. Take this little anecdote which happened to me today(and no doubt many others) as an example of how technology has integrated itself into our everyday lives.

So I hitched a ride home from a volleyball game from my good pal and fellow volleyballer Tommy, but shortly after I got out of the car I tried to hook up my phone to play some music. My phone was not in my pocket. Panic!!! Phones these days can do so many things so when you've just realised that your phone is gone, everything gets put off kilter - you feel less secure and cut off from the modern world, not to mention bored shitless on the train ride home.

I knew it must have fallen into Tommy's passenger seat, so rather than panicking about cancellation fees and rushing to the nearest payphone, I instead pondered the depths of which technology has infiltrated our everyday lives.

Pretty much everybody carries around a mobile with them these days, and what would we have done without them? Whenever you can ask that question about some form of revolutionary technology, then you know that it has become an integral part of society and the developed world as we know it.

Computers, mobiles, the internet, and the 'ipod' and all its embodiments of portable media are probably 4 of the biggest revolutionary advents of technology in this modern age of the late 20th- early 21st century. The developed world has long since been totally dependent on electricity long before the 21st century, so imagine the chaos we would be in if electricity just disappeared in the click of a finger. No lights, no battery charging, no internet, no communication, no heating, no refridgeration, no washing. Nothing. The world without electricity is possibly just too daunting to imagine.

It's simply amazing how quickly new technologies are integrated and how they can impact on people's lives and working efficiency, as well as their ever-growing dependence on anything electrical. Even today - I was considering not bringing my laptop since I had volleyball, but I knew I couldn't do without it even though it's only been 2 and a half weeks of uni since I've started to use it for physics and computing.

I guess one of the many responsibilities of electrical engineers is to take into account the social impacts of their designs or decisions on the world as we know it. The future of technology is in our hands - and that's what I love about being an electrical engineer. Oh right =D

Geoff
09.11
Sydney, AU
B Elec Eng/Comm @ UNSW