Whaddaya Trust?

I have bought into technology about as much as anyone, evidenced by this very blog. I'm quite enamored by the ways in which the internet, smartphones and the like have eased life by saving labor and offering solutions to long-festering problems. I've also been aware of technology's shortcomings. Apart from the deep questions about whether or not it's changing society for good or ill, there are other very practical reasons why one should keep a critical eye. I'm always surprised by the total credulousness in some people that enables major calamities.

I understand that the precious iPhone had a little software glitch. Now, that device has been revolutionary by all accounts, offering a bewildering array of incredible features which are often useful. I could see myself using one, and do have a similar phone. The iPhone glitch affected something I use on my own phone- the alarm. Some obscure error resulted in a specific type of alarm failing to go off for a couple of days early in this new year. People are quite angry, and rightfully so, but at entirely the wrong person if they fault the company. Are they not the one who put their faith in a phone which has an undisputed track record of glitches and minor failures? One sufferer of the glitch was resentful that the maker of the phone offered no warning so that she could set a backup alarm. I'd say that would have been a smart and reasonable measure in any case.

One always has to keep a wary eye on technology. To be sure, a low-tech alarm could as easily have failed if the plug had been yanked out or there were a general power failure, but I'd say that the simpler the device, the more reliable it is to carry out its function. My father works on the house and his car often, and has built up quite a set of tools. Probably the most remarkable to me is a humble hammer. That hammer is as dependable as the day my father bought it, which incidentally was before I was born. It was there my entire life, and never has failed once. It only does one thing, but does it as surely as does the sun carry out its sole responsibility.

You really can't count on technology implicitly. To me it's like a lot of spinning plates. The more there are, the greater the likelihood of them all crashing down, and naturally that crash is all the greater when it happens. We're granting more and more responsibility to these phones. You can use it as an alarm or even do your banking with it. Isn't that something? Eventually everything will be folded into that phone, and there's no possibility of it ever being infallible, is there? What a future it is that we're headed for.