User-friendly, Business-friendly and People-friendly!

Great good and great evil come from the use, people make of the media and communication technologies.

Speaking on the good done by technologies and media, Pontifical Council for Social Communications on Ethics in Communications, said: “Media are indispensable in today’s democratic societies. They supply information about issues and events, office holders and candidates for office. They enable leaders to communicate quickly and directly with the public about urgent matters. They are important instruments of accountability, turning the spotlight on incompetence, corruption, and abuses of trust, while also calling attention to instances of competence, public-spiritedness, and devotion to duty.”
People feared about everything beyond their comprehension. Seeing sun, moon, rain and other elements of nature was a terrifying experience. Thanks to technology that helped people to subdue nature. Today, however, fear creeps in, when one sees the enormity of technological growth.
The main difference between a technologically enhanced society and those of the past is that the distance between the creation of an idea in someone’s mind and its ultimate concrete application has been startlingly reduced. That is, the space between thought and action is almost instantaneous. The laborious trial and error of invention is reduced to a simple simulation on the computer which eliminates, years of tedious testing.
From automation we have come to a level of technology, taking control of its own functioning. These are times when technology controls technology. We may consider ourselves fortunate to be at the top of all these creations. But, we have left the controls to the technologically advanced people. Technocentric superiority is haunting the present generation. But, there are things that are yet to be fulfilled by technology.
There are also violations against man through the use of media. The pontifical council for social communications speaking about the ethics in communication said, “The media also can be used to block community and injure the integral good of persons: by alienating people or marginalising and isolating them; drawing them into perverse communities organised around false, destructive values; fostering hostility and conflict, demonising others and creating a mentality of ‘us’ against ‘them’; presenting what is base and degrading in a glamorous light, while ignoring or belittling what uplifts and ennobles; spreading misinformation and disinformation, fostering trivialisation and banality. Stereotyping-based on race and ethnicity, sex and age and other factors, including religion-is distressingly common in media. Often, too, social communication overlooks what is genuinely new and important, including the good news of the Gospel, and concentrates on the fashionable or faddish.”
For those of us who have been using the internet for years, it can seem impossible to imagine what life was like before internet service. Yet those of us over thirty know, that there was vibrant life before the internet. For many who live in remote parts of the earth, internet access is about as important and sensible to them as buying clothes for a pet dog. Life goes on, regardless of what technology does.
We need to reassure ourselves with the words of Pope John Paul II in Redemptor Hominis, 15, “The media do nothing by themselves; they are instruments, tools, used as people choose to use them. In reflecting upon the means of social communication, we must face honestly the ‘most essential’ question raised by technological progress: whether, as a result of it, the human person is becoming truly better, that is to say more mature spiritually, more aware of the dignity of his humanity, more responsible, more open to others, especially the neediest and the weakest, and readier to give and to aid all.”
Technology has not contributed sufficiently to the quality of life. It was supposed to bring in efficiency and productivity enhancements that would provide a multi-dimensional richness for those who embraced it. Instead, it has converted many of them to 24 x 7 creatures for whom the 5 day week is a figment of imagination.
Technology is supposed to create a better service. It has created a huge service industry. It has created numerous options for service.
What it needs is meaningful implementation, to avoid traps where the objective is obscured by the power of technology. That is the challenge that technologists have to overcome.
Technology allows more people to take control of their lives. We need to make technology, not only business-friendly and user-friendly but also people-friendly.