For most Americans, access to information, and technology facilitating that access is a given. How is it then, that it seems like a tremendous challenge to attain greater knowledge? Living around Washington, I regularly see people driving poorly, with a cell phone affixed to their ears. People walk onto elevators looking only at a mobile device, ignoring the person standing right beside them.
Walking down the street, or through an airport, people are checking their social media, or status updates, without being aware of their surroundings. There have been numerous reports lately where people are having new iPhones stolen right out of their hands, oblivious to the threats approaching them on the street. One can imagine someone checking to see what the weather is on a mobile device, while standing outside.
We all are working to adapt to the amazing changes in technology that surround us. It is a challenge. There's a learning curve to understanding the new GPS in a car, on a cable set-top box or included in a new mobile phone. But assimilating that technology into the human experience is something else completely. By the way, I love new gadgets and apps as much as the next person. But I worry sometimes that we've lost focus and connections with one another.
My prayer for the year ahead is that we remember that none of this technology ultimately has much value if we fail to understand we need each other to make our communities and our greater society work. There's no app for that.
If we strive only for improved technology, but accept diminished human relations, we've failed.
(Do you have some ideas how we can both embrace technology and others at the same time? Feel free to share them in the comments section.)
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