Technology affects practically every aspect of contemporary living, including productivity, socialising, food and healthcare access, transportation efficiency and safety.
The internet’s power has helped multinational communities to grow and simplified information and resource exchange.
But overuse of these technology has been linked to social split, mental health problems, and invasions of privacy.
We routinely take technology for granted (or even the earth), even when it instantaneously gives us the most latest news, brews our coffee, or lets us stay in touch with a loved one who lives halfway across the country.
Which contemporary innovations, in the actual world, are the ones we cannot imagine living without?
Has the coronavirus epidemic made us more reliant on technology or given us tools to get over annual challenges?
We look at the seven most important ways that modern technologies have lately affected our life.
Enhanced Transmission of Messages
I should see you, Watson; come on in.
It is reasonable to say that since Alexander Graham Bell uttered these initial words over his revolutionary creation in 1876, the trusty phone has had a good run.
Bell originally envisioned their being “one in every community.”
He was right, of course; everyone these days carries one in their pocket.
But with technology, messaging and social media have replaced the traditional voice call as a means of communication.
One more media that has seen increasing popularity recently is video calling.
Though the concept is not very fresh—it has been for almost as long as Bell’s phone—the introduction of reasonably priced high-speed broadband has made it far easier to send and receive the volumes of data needed for a video conference.
Although over the past 10 years video calling has been progressively merging into daily life, the present epidemic has pushed it over the brink and assured its future as a widespread form of contact.
Lockdowns and social disengagement have families and friends interacting and socialising more often than ever via video conference.
Though there are several more video conferencing apps out there, Zoom has become the most often used public example of video chat. If you had not heard of Zoom prior to 2020, by now you most likely have.
The company’s incredible claim that early this year there were 300 million “daily participants,” up from “only” 10 million in December 2019 supports this.
Video calls have evolved beyond just social contacts as well.
The epidemic has caused more individuals than ever to work from home; video conferences have replaced in-person meetings as office staff now gathers in bedrooms instead of boardrooms (or wherever else they can find space to work at home).
While Zoom is a great tool for getting together with pals, can it help your business through the epidemic?
After looking at several well-known video conference systems, we can help you decide which one best for your company in a few short minutes.
- Lost Privacy
More of our life than ever is being spent on the internet.
One survey indicates that Americans spend six and a half hours daily online in 2019. This figure most certainly has changed dramatically since lockdowns started.
Retail shopping? Its work is done on Amazon. Seeing familiar friends? Emails, FaceTime, or Snapchat. Are you in need of entertainment? Netflix, alternatively play games online. Investigative work?
Refer to Google.
Now practically all of our daily activities are done online, hence a growth in our online time seems natural.
Although we have never had it so handy, having everything available online has also put us in risk.
Every action we do online is tracked; each place we visit leaves a digital trace.
Scammers and hackers actively seek for this fact to exploit.
Of course, as our life moves online, technology has given us the tools to protect our safety as with everything else.
This will be especially more crucial in 2022 since many of us will be surfing for personal purposes and accessing shared business networks from our homes, therefore undermining the need for the walled-off security of the office.
One tool available to help safeguard your data is the password manager.
In certain circumstances, a password manager will even monitor the internet to ensure your personal data isn’t hacked. It will protect your present passwords, provide new, safe password ideas.
It will also help us to stop obsessing over forgetting one of our many passwords.
Furthermore, given some of the best applications only cost a few bucks a month, it’s a great low-cost way to get more security. Should you not have one, this is never a better moment to make investments.
Another great security invention is virtual private networks, VPN.
Two advantages of a VPN are bypassing your current internet service provider and masking your digital tracks.
Your exposure to hackers is much lessened as you will not be able to view the materials you are accessing.
You can also use more confidently public Wi-Fi accounts.
Along with home users, several businesses have lately started employing them.
Our recommendation is Surfshark.
It is both feature-rich and user-friendly, thus it scored so highly in our VPN head-to–head review.
The last choice is anti-virus software, which provides a robust protection against all the evil things prowling online and trying to fool us.
This covers ransomware and malware, both of which are often developed with an eye on victim money theft.
Not even the government is immune, hence employing good antivirus software is a great way to find and stop such efforts before they inflict damage.
Easy Shopping
You cannot literally get takeaway online (you can order a delivery, but that is not exactly the same), nor can you really beat seeing a product in person before you buy it. The high street should not be undervalued even if buying online is convenient and popular.Neither has technology neglected conventional retail.
Thanks to contactless cards and phone payments, we no longer have to bother about handing cash or inputting a pin number; just tap to pay.
Any size business would benefit much from a Point of Sale (POS) system.
Along with online payment processing, a POS lets you automatically manage stock levels, create electronic receipts, handle loyalty programs, restrict sales, and more.
It also doesn’t have to be costly; some even offer free hardware and POS systems begin at roughly $30 per month.
View our POS system reviews and begin immediately comparing POS systems to gain additional knowledge.
You can obviously shop from your house without leaving.
Since the great majority of people own a tablet, laptop, or smartphone, we all have quick access to a virtual marketplace where we can purchase nearly anything.
Furthermore democratising the retail sector is technology.
You had to create your own company from a real place before; today all you need is a computer and an idea.
Sales of your goods to the world have never been easier.
This is made feasible by the simplicity with which website builders let you rapidly create professionally looking websites that let you sell goods and services.
Improved Access to Information
Learning anything these days just involves a few clicks.
Many of us can just grab our phones, start Googling, or even ask our smart home assistant to handle it for us.Though it seems like a long time ago, if at all possible, obtaining more in-depth knowledge on a topic needed a trip to the library.
Thanks to technical developments, you can now find tens of thousands of internet pages covering almost everything you could possibly conceive from “crochet patterns” (which yields 129,000,000 hits on Google) to “Roman history” (1,360,000,000 results).
For many of us, there is essentially an app for everything, which has rendered many traditional media nearly useless. Though that’s quite cliche, it is accurate.
As an illustration, think of GPS: All you have to do to find somewhere is open an app like Google Maps, select the best path, and you will get directions together with satellite images.
Along with apps providing traffic, weather, safety, and legal information, there are even ones that automatically route trucks for companies.
Thanks to app technology, we today find it far easier to learn, date, eat, and practically everything else you can think of.
Not overlooked should be the actual hardware executing on all of these apps.
The popularity of smartphones has skyrocket over the past 10 years; daily web searches on mobile devices now surpass those on laptops and desktop computers.
Every year, without exception, handheld devices become improved upon.
Almost everyone now sees a mobile phone as a required tool, far more than its original function as a phone (to really interact with people), and acting as our portable portal to the internet world.
Digital Social Life
The rise of social media has brought yet another significant change into our way of life.
Given how fast this industry has grown, the early years of websites like MySpace and the first Facebook version already seem like a bygone age.
Services like Snapchat, TikHub, Instagram, and others let us now see the waking lives of others in real time, whether they are celebrities with millions or pals with a small following.Companies have participated in the fun since most of them see a competent social media manager as essential as they can either enhance or damage the reputation of a brand.
Even if social media has had a fairly rough journey recently, as a society—or as many societies—we have never seen such great global connectedness.
It has made social commentary and movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter more common as well as made us more vulnerable to events like Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica crisis that might influence democracy and vote count.
While social media can be fun, studies have also shown that usage can negatively affect our mental state.
It’s so awful that some governments are pushing social media companies—especially with relation to younger users—to take more responsibility.
Clearly a lot has to be done because a UK poll revealed that 46% of young women claimed social media negatively affected their self-esteem.
Social media is finally only as successful as the people who use it, but whether you enjoy it or not, it appears certain to be here to stay.
Consumers have the choice to opt out, but businesses who haven’t joined in will rapidly fall behind competitors.
Every company with an online presence and one that has to be done properly depends on digital marketing.
adaptable Working Conditions
Though many negative occurrences will define 2020, one of its most noteworthy benefits has been the acceptance of remote work.
As the infection spread, many were compelled to log on from their homes instead of their offices.
One research found that 42% of Americans reported working from home at their maximum frequency.
And the inclination seems to be here to stay even when this epidemic is over. Big companies like Microsoft and Twitter have already said that their staff members are free to work from home whenever it suits them.For many people, working from home has been rather revealing because of the lack of commute, more flexible hours, less environmental impact, and choice of location.
Once more, technical innovations and the perfect fusion of hardware and bandwidth make all of this possible.
That is not to suggest that working outside of an office is without challenges; managing a workforce scattered over multiple places can be challenging.
Once more, though, our friend technology advancement rescues the day with remote working software, which can support structure, organisation, goal-setting, time management, and scheduling.
More intelligent tracking of health
The popularity of exercise tools has evolved into still another technology trend.
We have been using technology to keep in shape for some time, but we have never been able to do it in a manner so scientific, with real-time feedback and recommendations from technologies that can track our activities as we perform them.See how dedicated we are in the fitness tech industry just looking at Apple, whose Apple Watch is extensively pushed as a workout tool.
Selling 31 million of them in 2019, the company exceeded more well-known brands like Rolex and Omega to rank as the most often used watch brand globally.
What then specifically can a fitness watch do?
Your “sports watch” could merely track your lap time, long gone is the time when it could have.
These days, we can monitor our exercise schedules, check our pulse rates and blood pressure, and even examine our sleeping patterns.
Tech.co has looked at and compared some of the best fitness watches on the market, including FitBit, Apple Watch, and Garmin Forerunner, to help you decide which is the best fit for your budget and needs should you want to buy one this year.
Conclusion: The Effect of Technology
Thus, you have seven quite remarkable illustrations of how technology has improved our daily existence.
Technology is continually changing hence some of the goods and services we have covered here will soon become outdated. Many times, the evolution of their successor is already under progress in a research centre.
All the same, there is no questioning that technology has had and will always have a major influence on our lives.
