Almost every aspect of 21st-century life is influenced by technology. It affects mobility, safety, convenience, food, healthcare, sociability, and performance. The internet has made it easy to form global communities and share ideas. However, overusing certain technologies can harm personal wellbeing, increase social divisiveness, and threaten privacy.
Every day, we take technology for granted. It brings us the latest news instantly, brews our coffee, and keeps us connected with loved ones across the country—or even around the world.
Which recent innovations have become indispensable? Has the coronavirus pandemic increased our dependence on technology, or has it helped us tackle this year’s challenges?
Here are seven of the most significant ways technology has impacted our lives in recent years.
Communication has improved.
“Come here, Watson, I need to see you,” Alexander Graham Bell said in 1876 over his groundbreaking invention. It’s fair to say that the telephone has had a remarkable run. Bell had hoped there would be “one in every town.” He was right—today, everyone carries one in their pocket. However, technological advances have gradually replaced classic voice calls with texting and social media as primary communication methods.
Video calling has also grown in popularity. The idea is not new—it has existed nearly as long as Bell’s telephone. But the rise of high-speed, affordable internet now makes sending and receiving the data needed for video calls easy.
While video calling quietly entered daily life over the past decade, the current pandemic has accelerated its use. It is now an essential tool for staying in touch every day.
Reduced Privacy
In 2019, Americans spent six and a half hours daily online, and that figure has likely increased since the lockdowns.
Shopping is done on Amazon, socializing through FaceTime or Snapchat, entertainment via online gaming or Netflix, and research using Google. Nearly every part of our lives is now online, suggesting our online time will rise.
While online access offers convenience, it also makes us vulnerable, as every action is tracked. Hackers exploit our digital footprints for financial gain.
Technology also provides ways to protect ourselves, which is crucial as many now access business networks from home.
The password manager is one piece of technology that will assist keep your data protected. A password manager secures old passwords, suggests new ones, and may monitor the web for theft, easing the worry of forgotten passwords. If you don’t have one, get it now; top apps cost only a few dollars monthly for better security.
A VPN lets you bypass your internet service provider and hides your digital activity, reducing hacker vulnerability. It’s safer to use public Wi-Fi, and we recommend Surfshark for its features and user-friendly interface.
Antivirus software protects against online threats like ransomware and malware, crucial for preventing financial loss. It’s essential for everyone, from individuals to governments, to detect and contain these threats early.
Improved Information Access
It takes little more than a couple of clicks these days to find out something. Many of us don’t even need to depart from our current location; simply pick out your phone and start Googling, or ask your smart home assistant.
It may seem like a long time ago, but it wasn’t so long ago that you had to travel to the library to get more in-depth knowledge on a subject if it was even accessible at all. Now, thanks to technological improvements, you can discover hundreds of thousands of online pages dedicated to almost everything you can think of, from “crochet patterns” (Google returns 129,000,000 hits) to “Roman history” (1,360,000,000 results).
It’s a cliche, but there’s an app for everything, and they’ve rendered many other mediums all but useless for many of us. Take GPS, for example: if you want to know how to travel someplace, you just open an app like Google Maps and select the best route, which includes instructions as well as satellite imagery. There are also corporate apps that automatically route trucks while also providing traffic, weather, safety, and legal information. App technology has also made it much easier for us to learn, date, eat, and do practically everything else we can think of.
Not to be neglected are the physical devices on which all of these apps operate. For security reasons, the apps have bot detection technology to avoid any kind of issue. Over the last decade, the smartphone has grown at an exponential rate, and daily online searches on mobile devices now surpass those on laptop or desktop computers. Every year, without fail, advancements are made to portable devices.
The mobile phone has beyond its basic role as a telephone (to talk to people) and has evolved into our pocket-sized link to the internet world.
Improved Health Tracking
Another technological development has been the growth of fitness gadgets. While we’ve been utilizing technology to help us keep fit for years, we’ve never been able to do it so scientifically, with real-time feedback and recommendations from gadgets that can track our exercises as we perform them.
Apple’s Apple Watch, marketed as a fitness device, shows just how committed the company is to the fitness tech industry. In 2019, the firm sold 31 million of them, making it the world’s most popular watch brand, considerably exceeding conventional names like Rolex and Omega.
So, what exactly can a fitness watch do? We’ve come a long way from the days when your “sports watch” could just record your lap time. We can now track and monitor our heartbeats and blood pressure, as well as track and monitor our workout routines and sleeping patterns. If you want to buy one this year, Tech. co has evaluated and compared some of the finest fitness watches on the market, including FitBit, Apple Watch, and Garmin Forerunner, to identify the best features and price. Besides this, there are many new home devices that make your life easier. For example, Alexa Homes, Google Devices, Air Filters etc.
Conclusion: Technology’s Influence
So there you have it: seven spectacular ways technology has positively transformed our daily lives. Of course, technology never sleeps, and you can be sure that some of the devices and services we discussed here will soon become obsolete—many teams are already developing their next versions in labs somewhere.
Regardless, there is no doubt that technology has had and will continue to have a significant influence on our lives.
