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Health & Fitness

I Hate The Word 'Innovation'

In a culture of speed, stimulus, change, and innovation, are we shaping our society our is technology shaping us?

There is one thing that I love more than red balloons. The elderly. Perhaps it’s due to my upbringing as I spent more time with my grandparents then children. I spend my Sundays at Seaport Village enjoying the Sun’s vitamin D rays and the elderly people that congregate there to spend time listening to the live jazz music. If there is someone above the age of 75 anywhere near me, my heart will feel compelled to go over strike up a conversation. I know that they have truly lived, their skin shows the wars they have survived, the heartbreaks that have resulted in strength and their various triumphs that have made their eyes soft [Sure I’m generalizing and I have met my share of crabby patties, but you get that in any age group.]

It’s no wonder that my trip to the post office ended in a new found friendship with an older man, age 89 (Yes, 89!) from Brooklyn. He was so zestful, humorous with high-high socks that he made my eyes water. I loved him. We were waiting for the line to move quickly so we could return to our mundane errands. It seems as though even the post office has been smacked by our digital age. Now attendees are required to scan their letters before seeing an actual Post Office employee. The elderly gentleman turned to me and said “goodness, I feel like you need to be a genius to exist now-a-days. I consider myself someone of average intelligence but everything is just so complicated.” His comment struck a chord.

I wonder has our insatiable quest for innovation turned our world into an ever-changing society that constantly craves the next best thing? Are we truly shaping our technology or is our technology shaping us. I subscribe to the philosophy that, if it ain't broke, don’t fix it and as I read FastCompany’s article entitled, This Is generation Flux: Meet the Pioneers of the New (And Chaotic) Frontier of Business, I felt rushed, panicked, and stressed by the speed of innovation. We have a need to innovate, sure, things must progress but what if we start looking for things to improve, get bigger, badder, better; the crazy need to maximize unfortunately with this mindset, we are truly never satisfied with what we have in front of us.

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I think about small and emerging businesses with a wonderful product or service that now need complex algorithms just to have an online presence. What is technology doing to mom and pop shops that can’t keep up with the Joneses because of knowledge, abilities, or budget. 

Mashable’s CEO, Pete Chasmore shares “I don’t have any personal challenges about throwing away the past. If you’re not changing, you’re giving others a chance to catch up.” I wonder if the speed of American culture is what’s responsible for shutting down our public libraries and bookstores and producing a generation with every medium of communication, but not teaching them to actually communicate. Is it truly helping or hindering? Sure, one can’t hold onto the past but isn’t it what brought you to the present?

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Innovator, comedian and entertainment Gen Y-er, Baratunde Thurston argues, “People say, ‘if I master Twitter, I’ve got it figured out.’ That’s true but it is also wrong. If you master those things and stop, you’re just going to get killed by the next thing. Imagine a future where people are resistant to status, where they’re use to speed. A world that slows down if there are fewer options—that’s old thinking and frustrating. Stimulus becomes the new normal” (2012, FastCompany).

Stimulus becoming the new normal? I think if I had had my head buried deep in my cell phone, Tweeting, Facebooking, Pitneresting, Social media-izing my life rather than living it, I would miss out on sweet interactions like the one with my post office partner, Charles.

I have a deep appreciate for things of old: Library books, the actual sound of flipping a page…ahhh there is no greater joy in life. I revel in the satisfaction of sending a handwritten card and watching my pen trace the stock paper, my words literally transforming a blank canvas. I enjoy CDs. Shoot, I still make mix tapes. I haven’t downloaded a song…EVER. Yes, I am a Gen Y. I'm 26 years old and I have never downloaded a song. Our culture is slowly eliminating these “archaic” assets, which were once seen as innovations themselves. It’s social Darwinism in hyper speed.

Hewlett Packard had a commercial that aired a few years ago with a little girl the age of 4. She was showing the camera a photograph of her pet fish. She then walked the viewers through the process of scanning and uploading a photograph. The purpose of this commercial was to show the world H.P.’s technology is so easy even a four year old can do it; its aim to encourage different age groups and demographics to embrace the changes that innovation and technology brings. I fear that little girl will be able to upload her own photograph before she will be able to write her own name and she will see that skill as more important. How scary. 

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