What is technology for?

What is technology for?

Put simply: technology buys you time. It extends your life. It shortens your journey times. It speeds up arduous tasks. It simplifies the complicated and automates the simple.

Technology buys you time.

If technology is going to improve the human race by buying us more free time then we'd better use that time doing things that make us better, stronger, wiser and happier.

So what will you do with that time? Spend more time in bed? Sit around more? Eat more food? Watch more re-runs of Friends? Smoke more cigarettes? Spend more money? Daydream more? Aspire for more?

This is the danger of free time. The tendency to waste it or fill it with things you don't really want to be doing or need to be doing.

Boredom is very dangerous. It makes you unhappy. It makes you unfit and unmotivated and stagnant.

Use your free time. Recognise where technology has bought you those free hours and fill them with things that make you better.

Exercise. Learn. Discuss. Laugh. Plan. Collaborate. Exert yourself. Leave your comfort zone.

Technology does the things you don't want to do. Make sure you don't forget to figure out what things you really do want to do.