We are constantly hearing about that new piece of technology or gadget that we must have. The new Apple Watch that is to be released some time soon, or the Nissan Leaf that runs completely on electricity. Both of these pieces of cutting edge technology require the use of electricity. Although electricity is completely intertwined with our lives and that we can’t imagine living without it, is it wise to develop technology that requires only electricity and rely solely on those pieces of technology to get through our everyday lives?
Don’t get me wrong; I love technology and electricity as much as the next person, but what happens if one day, it all fails. That’s not completely unreasonable because power outages happen all the time. What happens if in the future, we completely rely on technology that completely relies on electricity and there is a huge power outage? It would be extremely difficult to continue with what ever we were doing at the time. An electromagnetic pulse can render all these pieces of technology useless. Although it is highly unlikely that someone would walk around shooting out EM pulses, it is still something that could happen.
You may be thinking that this is a highly situation and it will never happen but I beg to differ. There are gadgets that allow you to control the heating and air conditioning in your house through a telephone app. What if that technology fails? Does that mean you won’t be able to control the temperature in your house? What if you need the heater because it’s wintertime? What about cars that rely on electricity? What would happen if there were no electricity? Would this mean that I would have no way to get to where I wanted to go?
This post is not to blame or disapprove the use of technology in any way. Some people say to not put all your eggs in one basket – maybe there is some validity to that statement. Our society is already moving in the direction of using electricity for all our technologies. If we become a society that is completely reliant on electricity, there will need to be back up plans and back up plans to the original back up plan in case anything goes wrong.
Sources:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/luxury-homes/9579235/technology-home-future.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/CITIB-56.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/2011_Nissan_Leaf_SL_–_10-28-2011.jpg