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a well lived bland life
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Imperfect Technology
Technology is great. It makes many things possible and/or easier and without it I wouldn't have a job. However, technology is also imperfect. In my experience we, as users of technology often assume technology to be perfect. When something works we believe it should continue to work. I make the same assumptions about my car. My car has always started, why would it cease to start in the future?
I've been pondering technology's imperfections over the last several days as I trudge through the never ending barrage of support calls and emails that is my daily job. It never fails that something fails. It could be a word document that has opened every day until today. Or a phone that was getting email just fine until one day, no more email. Or, hopefully infrequently, your computer doesn't boot because your hard drive crashed. I tend to believe that imperfect technology and problems come from one of three causes. Either its reliant upon imperfect physical materials, lack of foresight by the creator, or lack of time to create.
The first cause, imperfect materials, is not really something technology can avoid. Physical materials erode and fall apart and all computers and therefore their applications housed within are subject to the natural deterioration of matter. A hard drive can run constantly for several years without a problem, or they can fail before they're even turned on for the first time. As much as I dislike the fact that I had to buy new tires for our van tonight, I understand that the rubber composing the tire isn't invincible and it would eventually fail and need to be replaced.
The second cause, lack of foresight, is also, unfortunately, something technology cannot avoid. Technology is created by human intelligence, and since human beings are flawed, so will their creations suffer. Developers try all they can to foresee all uses for their technological inventions but they cannot possibly plan for everything. People like customization. We want choice. Every computer will not be created the same way by the same manufacturer and contain the same software, therefore you can't always guarantee that the developer's experience when testing a program will be the same as your experience. Technological developers lack the foresight to create for all cases and situations.
Operator error also falls into the category of foresight. I believe there are two dimensions to operator error; handled and unhandled. Unhandled operator errors are those resulting from improper use of technology which leads to the technology to cease functioning. While handled operator errors are errors that the creator foresaw and protected against, alerted the operator of their mistake, and continued to function. Unhandled errors exist because the creator lacked the foresight to know how a user would use or improperly use their technology. Handled errors are the result of a developer having the foresight to make their technology withstand improper use and to continue functioning. However, in the theoretical realm a perfect piece of technology would be able to determine what the user was trying to do and still accomplish its function, but this exists only theoretically and would be impossible to accomplish.
Time is the last factor, in my opinion, causing imperfect technology. If a developer had unlimited time they might be able to limit the amount of possible problems, also known as bugs. Timeframes are also limited by money. The longer a program is being created, the more money it costs to develop. It actually makes more sense, economically, for a company to create an application with known bugs than to create something they believe to be impenetrable. This, you see, is why software companies are continuously releasing updates upon updates to their applications. They are patching the problems and bugs that have been discovered, many of which have left your computer vulnerable to others who seem to have nothing better to do than trying to access your information.
To exemplify technology's challenges I will use a simple bridge. If you came upon a small river and built a small bridge out of a single board to cross the river you would have successfully employed technology to cross the river. The board, although useful, is full of imperfections and will decompose over time and one day fail. If you were also told that you needed to design this bridge in such a way that your bridge would handle all situations and uses without faltering while still accomplishing its goal of providing safe passage to the other side, your bridge design would change, become much more complex, and take much longer to build. Now you understand the daunting task facing many technological innovations.
We as users should give technology a break. It's imperfect and its going to remain that way. If we understood everything that must go right in order for the mouse to even move the cursor on the screen we'd throw a parade in its honor.
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Blando's Blog
Disciple of Christ, Husband, Father, and IT-guy.
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