We often talk about disruptive technologies that change our society abruptly. Internet, mobile phones, social networks … With each new invention, enormous areas of work are generated and, nevertheless, we lead a life not very different from that of a few decades ago, except for the time factor.
There was a time when we were looking for information asking the most cultured. Then we take a look at the encyclopedias and lately we use the internet to consult data. Learning seems to have changed, but it has only gotten faster. We are moved by the same curiosity, and we keep searching.
Speed, the relevant factor in technology
Videogames of strategic planning, those in which you expand the mine to earn +1 metal/second, are a good example of how technology shapes our society. We continue to take iron underground, but the difference with respect to the past lies in the speed.
With each level of technology in areas as diverse as education, healthcare or industry, we add a minuscule speed factor. A 0.01% advance that impacts rather little in our lives. As an example, we can think about how vehicles gained in speed during the last century.
From 60 km / h we have passed the safety limit of 120 km / h, and that means that now it takes less time to reach the other side. But we have not left behind holidays or work trips. We only make them faster. Continuing with the labour market, the internet did not bring us great changes in the office either.
Yes, it is true that we used to work with CDs and now we store everything in the cloud. And even that there was a time when we had a room in each office with mountains of boxes in which the work was saved and today it is enough to click on the floppy disk . Sometimes, not even that.
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That said, the work itself has hardly changed, although we do have more time to devote to what we are good at. We have compacted storing a document in a mouse click, and the time gained is dedicated to working. We call this productivity, but we keep biting the mine.
In what do you use technology you?
To test this speed increase without a significant change in the impact on day to day, we can keep an eye on our respective lives. Let the hand rise who has stopped working due to technology. Or who has a robot that facilitates domestic cleaning beyond a vacuum cleaner?
The robotic vacuum cleaner is certainly interesting. It saves us many hours a year of sweeping, although it has not substantially modified our way of living at home. We keep cleaning the house the humans during the weekends, and the robot barely saves us 5 minutes in this general cleaning.
We still have television and we are going to buy from the market. We, not our robot. A few have changed a large screen for a smaller one, that of the mobile, and instead of consuming live broadcast, they watch streaming content, but even these are not always new.
Friends, the 1994 series, is still one of the most watched Netflix content according to ‘The Binge Report’. Rare is the week that comes down from the TOP 5 and is a series of more than 24 years ago. In TVE Tell Me How It Happened continues to set trends, 17 years after its first broadcast. Although now it is accessible with streaming On Demand.
With respect to the market that we mentioned, some replaced it at the time for the supermarket, and the most modern ones for the online purchase . But who has stopped buying and worry about the food we have at home? Or cooking? The difference returns to lie in the speed. +1 metal.
Disruptive mobility? Not this decade
Once in a while, one technology stands out from the others, or a set of them gradually changes the way we live. The use of soap or the invention of the toilet is among them. Both achieved important milestones in hygiene and quality of life. What about mobility?
The electric vehicle has more than a century of travel and, however, still does not take off. It is not the only technology that does not finish booting, and there were even many that were announced with great fanfare as they were going to change the system. They did not, of course.
With all the advantages that the electric vehicle has over current systems, it would give the feeling that people would go for it. But it has not been that way. Its penetration in the market advances, but it is slow. In the most populated urban areas, we see the largest movement, still a minority.
Even if accompanied by a shared, connected and autonomous model, it would be rare for “disruptive mobility” to be a significant change in our lives. Our parents’ generation worked eight hours a day, just like us. Disruptive mobility will take us to work faster, but it will not take hours away from our journey.
Nor has it ousted the internet to the university. When the first MOOC courses were announced, there was the talk of a change in the education system. People keep coming to class, and MOOCs have become an interesting addition. Faster, +1 metal, but without radical changes.
Goodbye to the paper, hello to the screens
The same speed is reflected in the work systems. Today many of us use Word or similar systems when writing reports. I will give you devastating news: the first version of Microsoft Word dates from 1983 and, although it is true that there have been substantial improvements, the base did not change.
We continue going to the office to write text in Word, but without using boot floppies. Which, again, brings speed, but not a change in habits. Also, the use of paper keeps decreasing around us because we have everything stored in the cloud , but we have not stopped working.
