Technology is definitely a mixed blessing. You can do incredible things with it, but for many of us, perhaps for most of us, there is a steep learning curve as you advance. It is hard enough when it works well, and when there are glitches and problems that even tech support can't explain, it can cause frustration, anxiety and mental fatigue.
Commenting on the transition from an agrarian society to an industrialized one, George Orwell's words can perhaps apply to our modern dilema, when he writes, "When you say, 'I object to mechanization and standardization--therefore I object to Socialism', you are saying in effect, 'I am free to do without the machine if I choose', which is nonsense. We are all dependent upon the machine, and if the machines stopped working most of us would die. You may hate the machine- civilization, probably you are right to hate it, but for the present there can be no question of accepting or rejecting it. The machine-civilization is here, and it can only be criticized from the inside, because all of us are inside it. It is only romantic fools who natter themselves that they have escaped, like the literary gent in his Tudor cottage with bathroom h. and c., and the he-man who goes off to live a 'primitive' life in the jungle with a Mannlicher rifle and four wagon-loads of tinned food. And almost certainly the machine-civilization will continue to triumph. There is no reason to think that it will destroy itself or stop functioning of its own accord." (The Road to Wigan Pier, Chapter 13)
Even though we pay a high price for the knowledge and technology tools we acquire and use, who of us would choose to go without them once we have them in our possession?
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