We see something great and get the feeling of "WOW.
What a great invention it is. This will be the greatest invention in this
century. This will probably upgrade our life to next level". But later on
we realize the problems. With the amount of good they are doing, they also
bring in some bad with them.
Smartphone is the best example of such invention. It has changed the lives of almost everyone. It changed the way friends communicate, families communicate, customers/clients communicate. We talk with people over the phone. We buy things over the phone. We find answers using phone. We pay bills over the phone. Our memories are captured and preserved using phone. We travel to different places through the phone using e-bookings. Literally everything brought onto our finger tips. No doubt, we can say Smart phone is the best thing happened in this century. But the story doesn't end here.
Smartphone is the best example of such invention. It has changed the lives of almost everyone. It changed the way friends communicate, families communicate, customers/clients communicate. We talk with people over the phone. We buy things over the phone. We find answers using phone. We pay bills over the phone. Our memories are captured and preserved using phone. We travel to different places through the phone using e-bookings. Literally everything brought onto our finger tips. No doubt, we can say Smart phone is the best thing happened in this century. But the story doesn't end here.
Smart phone has also brought so many problems with it. Now
almost every parent worrying about the way kids are getting addicted to smart
phones. Spouses complaining about their better halves for paying more attention
to mobile than to them. During recent power cuts in Bangalore, some of my
friends expressed "They had an awesome time with family members. As there
was no Wifi & no TV at home". During the floods time in Chennai, lot
of people mentioned similar opinions. Doctors and psychiatrists saying many
health problems are because of the way people uses their mobile phones.
Similar example will be the Green Revolution. In 1961 when India was struggling with food shortage, lot of scientists introduced Hybrid seeds, Chemical pesticides and Fertilizers. The positive effect was immediate and the yield was multiplied by 4-5 times. In the next 30 years, India had become self-sufficient on food grains and soon started exporting grains to various countries. WOW. That looks like a perfect success story. But wait. Let’s see the after effects.
Due to the rise in use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers,
we are losing the productive capacity of the land. The ground water is also
polluted. Many traditional fruits have lost their nutrition values. Lot of nutritionists
are suggesting not to consume some fruits due to excessive chemicals sprayed on
them. Now we understood the problem of Green revolution and moving towards
Organic farming.
Sometimes great inventions lose their value because of the way end users use it. Albert Einstein derived the formula of E=mc2. It can be used for many great inventions, but some people used it to create atom bomb. Lot of news says he was feeling guilty all through his life because he indirectly contributed to Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In our day to day life, we need to derive many solutions as part of personal life or as part of the job. To evaluate the solution we shouldn't just see whether our solution solves the problem or not. We should also cross check if our solution going to create any new problem in the future. Our solutions can't be termed as great until we make sure it will not affect in negative way in the future.
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