Thanks to science and technology! - Day 13 of 30 - #30daysblogmarathon

In the last 3 days, I've separately thanked nature and scientists. It's time to now be thankful for the science and technology that has transformed our lives for the better and is continuing to do so every day.

If it weren't for the curious and talented geniuses that have walked this earth, we never would have progressed as much as we have! These are some of the things that technology has enabled us to do for which I feel so grateful.

- Simplifying routine tasks - If we look, we can find that there is an appliance to help us do practically everything that we usually do during the day be it in the kitchen, at work, in the gym, you name it. If you like to and can afford it, you can actually automate every aspect of your life. There are now mobile applications for every little thing from tracking your finances to tracking menstrual cycles; ordering food to buying gold, from reading books to watching movies to listening to music, to meditating - anything that you can think of, chances are that there's an app for it.

- Being connected - whether by mobile, email, voice or video chats, technology has made distance quite redundant when it comes to reaching out and staying connected with people. This, for me, is by far technology's greatest gift to mankind. Facebook has made it easy to find anyone no matter how many years it's been since you last met. Whatsapp has practically replaced phone-calls and made it so much easier to communicate with people. I remember talking to someone about this recently - Earlier, people had open doors and visitors would feel free to drop in when they want because someone or the other would be home. Then there came a time when people would call to ask if they could come over. Now they Whatsapp to ask if they can call! 

- Medical advancements - probably the most significant of science's achievements is the strides it's made in the field of health and medicine. No matter what the disease, science has given us at best, a longer life and at worst, some hope. Of course, not all maladies are curable but a lot more of them are today than a few decades ago. 

- Mobility - Getting from one place to another was never so easy. App-based ride hailing services have changed the way we commute. Earlier, our only options were owned vehicles or public transport but not anymore! Cruise control, parking guides and other helpful features for safe driving, autopilot for aeroplanes - there have been betterments across modes of transport and or access to them.

- Shopping - I suffer from Digishopaholicism which is a name I coined for my chronic online shopping addiction so that it seems a tad more legit and somehow makes it feel like it's out of my control! I have found that if I can think about something, I can find it online and there's a way for me to procure it. I can get everything I need at my fingertips if I want to. This has been made possible only because of the supply chain and logistics facilities that technology has afforded. Imagine connecting vendors and buyers from across the globe just a century ago - that entailed ships and months of waiting. Not any more though. I absolutely HAVE TO thank technology for that! Also, credit cards and digital payments.....so much more convenient than having to carry around wads of cash! We live in a time when everything is sold in hundreds and thousands of Rupees. So without digital payments, we would have to carry a lot more cash around than earlier generations where this was not so much the case.

- Any post on technology would be incomplete without thanking the big daddy of them all - Google! There's practically nothing that can't be found on Google and it's the new age equivalent of  'if you don't know, then ask your elders!' 

Technology has changed the way me move, the way we communicate, the way we interact with our surroundings in this Instagram age (capture it even before you can experience it!), the way we make ourselves heard in the Twitter age, the way we eat and shop - bringing the world to our doorstep giving us a ton of options for everything!

Of course, there's always cynics that will say that technology has not been all-good. If it has given us medical advancements, it has also given us nuclear weapons. While it has given us comfort and convenience, it has also made us sedentary and there more prone to disease. Where we have ease of being connected, there's also the fear of loss of privacy. All of which, I will not deny. 

But isn't that true of any discovery? It's only as good as the choices you make on how, when and how much to use it. I use them just enough to feel good about them! What about you?