r36 - does technology improve quality of our lives

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Does Technology Improve Quality of Our Lives?

“Quality of life” is an elusive idea. Many equate it with having money, but itdoes not address everything we want in our lives such as our physical and mentalhealth. By providing us with ways to control the uncertainties of Mother Nature,technology has certainly allowed us to increase the quality of our lives in terms ofsurvival in the practical sense of the term (subsistence). But, beyond that, what hastechnology done for us? I would argue that it has not done much. One of the fewexceptions, I would further argue, is online dating, which I will address later.

Technology increases efficiency. By itself, this sounds positive, but upon furtherinvestigation, we realize that efficiency does not necessarily lead to higher quality oflife. Take the business of graphic design, for instance. Though I did not personallyexperience the days before computers, the industry is far more efficient now than it usedto be. For the sake of the argument, say, the same job 20 years ago took 10 times longerto execute (which is probably not far from the truth), and one designer used to take on 5jobs a year. This means that, with the increase in efficiency, today’s designer can takeon 50 jobs a year. Has the quality of life for graphic designers increased because oftechnology? The answer is obviously no. Taking into consideration the rate of inflation,they are not getting paid anymore than they did 20 years ago, but are now required toproduce 10 times more a year.

The critics of capitalism might jump to the conclusion that it is the fault of thecapitalists that graphic designers are not getting paid 10 times as much, but this is nottrue. The design firms who employ those designers are not making any more moneythan they used to either. The businesses who hire those graphic design firms aren’t

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making any more money because of it either. So, who is benefiting from this increase inefficiency? No one really. It’s efficiency for the sake of efficiency.

The reason why no one benefits from it is because the market always adjustsitself to whatever level of efficiency we achieve. That is, the value of efficiency is goingdown because what matters is not the absolute level of efficiency, but the relative one. Ifyou are the only person to achieve a higher level of efficiency, then you could enjoy theincrease in the quality of life. For instance, if you are the only graphic designer armedwith a computer, you could handle ten times more work than your competitors could, oryou could do 1/10 of the work your competitors do and still make the same amount ofmoney. Unfortunately or fortunately, this type of scenario rarely happens. Sooner orlater your competitors will get hold of the same computer you have. Your level ofefficiency then is only worth as much as that of others. Ironically, technology alsoincreases the efficiency of the market to adjust itself.

In more general terms, the value of the average person’s one hour alwaysremains the same no matter how efficient we become. Suppose, 10 years ago, in order toearn enough money to buy a dinner at a diner, an average person had to work for anhour and handle 10 tasks in that hour. Now, the average person, using new technologies,can handle 100 tasks an hour, that is, 10 times more. Well, sadly he still has to work foran hour to buy a dinner at the same diner.

The only way to increase the quality of life, at least monetarily, is to be moreproductive than the average person. The quality of your life is relative to the averageperson, not relative to the absolute level of productivity. Technology, in this sense, cangive you an advantage if you use it before others do, but as soon as everyone elsecatches up to you, your advantage is gone. Technology, therefore, can increase thequality of life for those who can master it faster than others, but on the other hand, ifyou are not a technologically-oriented person, technology can decrease the quality ofyour life for the same reason. For instance, the older generations of graphic designerswho were skilled with their hands, but not with computers, are now suffering as a resultof the proliferation of computers.

So far, we have looked at only one side of the equation. Economy is based onsupply and demand. We cannot just produce if there is no demand. Then who isconsuming all these products we produce so efficiently? We are. The efficiency appliesnot only to production, but also to consumption. Since technology makes our livesefficient, we can consume more efficiently. Does increased consumption lead toincreased quality of life? Beyond the level of subsistence, the answer is no, mainlybecause it is not by choice that we consume more. In order to stay a functional memberof our society, we have to consume (both material and informational products) as muchas others do. It is not a matter of choice that we buy computers and cell phones, oracquire more skills and knowledge; we have to. In terms of satisfying our basic needslike food, shelter, and some entertainment, there are limits to how much we canconsume. Even though Americans are pushing those limits, we can only eat so much.We have only so much time to watch movies and play video games. The vast majorityof our consumptions are for the sake of increased productions. Our massiveconsumptions are not increasing the quality of our lives.



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From another angle, you might think, with the increase in efficiency, the costs ofgoods and services must go down, and this should allow us to spend the saved moneyon something else, right? Not really. As the cost of living goes down, your pay goesdown too. The market is quite smart that way. It always adjusts. You can’t work in themiddle of nowhere USA, and get paid like a New Yorker. The market knows that yourcost of living is much lower, so it pays you less.

Here is another example of the accuracy of the market. Say, you work behind thecounter at a take-out restaurant. As it has now become customary in New York City,you ask for tips. You think you are making more money by doing so, but you arewrong. Sooner or later, the market will adjust itself, and you will see a decrease in theaverage pay of counter clerks, just like the way most waiters work for a minimum wageor less. By asking for tips, you have only made your life more difficult. Now, you haveto work harder to please your customers, and the amount of money you make fluctuatesfrom day to day, which means that you are now taking financial risks with no benefit.

You might also think that technology is making our lives more convenient, andthat must increase the quality of our lives. Not really. Online services like FreshDirectwhich allow you to do your grocery shopping online and deliver the products to yourdoor, save you a lot of time and hassle. Now you can enjoy the time you saved from it,right? Not really. Once everyone saves the same amount of time with such services, themarket will again adjust itself. As you make more time available for yourself with theefficiency of technology, the market will quickly adjust itself to demand more from you.It’s a catch-22.

Is anyone benefiting from this massive increase in efficiency? It is tempting tosay it’s the rich people, but technology has in fact made it more difficult for the richpeople to stay rich. Before the age of information technology, the rich people hadexclusive access to information that could be exploited to make a lot of money. Nowthey have much less of those advantages. Someone like Bill Gates could become therichest man on earth in a matter of a few decades. This is in fact one of the fewexamples I can think of where technology has actually improved the quality of our lives.It democratized the opportunities to be rich.

For those developing countries whose majority is still suffering from the lack ofbasic material, technology can certainly increase the quality of their lives. If I were todraw a graph of quality of life as we introduce technology to such countries, it wouldstart to go up rapidly at first, but eventually would start to level off. On the other hand,if I were to draw another graph, concurrent in time with the other graph, which tracksthe increase in efficiency and production, it will start out relatively flat (slow) and shootup exponentially later as the effect of the technology kicks in. The developed countrieslike the US are at the point where efficiency is increasing dramatically, but the increasein the quality of life is hardly perceptible. What would happen to the world when allcountries reach the point of the US? We would then be working very hard todramatically increase efficiency every year, and see no difference in the quality of ourlives.

Now to the positive aspect of technology. As I mentioned above, I believe thatthe greatest technological contribution to the quality of our lives in recent years was



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online dating, and to a lesser degree, networking websites like Friendster, Meetup.com,and Orkut.

Between a happy, meaningful relationship and a million dollars, if we could onlyhave one or the other for the rest of our lives, most of us would choose the former. Thequality of your love life is a big part of the overall quality of your life. What makes itdifficult to increase this quality of life is the fact that, unlike money, love is not easilyquantifiable, and it cannot be logically processed. Most attempts in the past tosystematically increase the quality, such as personals ads and dating services, have onlyseen a small degree of success. Online dating is the first time in history the generalpopulace has embraced such systematic attempt.

I have personally witnessed several people who were single for yearssuccessfully find their mates through online dating. Even those who did not haveproblems in the past are finding mates who are closer to their ideals. They are meetingpeople whom they could not have met if it weren’t for online dating. All this isobviously positive, but there is more to it than what is on the surface, or at least so Ibelieve.

The following is only a hypothesis, and is not backed up by any actual research,but I think it makes an intuitive sense. Online dating is encouraging people to cross thedemographic borders that were otherwise impossible to cross. For instance, a personwho works on Wall Street has a hard time meeting anyone outside of his own industrylike advertising or publishing. When you are in the business of graphic design, yourarely meet doctors or lawyers in social situations, but just because you are a graphicdesigner, does not mean that you get along best with graphic designers. Online datingallows you to explore other options.

The more important borders that online dating allows you to cross are racialborders. In the past few years, I have seen a dramatic increase in the number of coupleswith the racial combination of an Asian man and a White woman. Over 15 years ago,my first American girlfriend was White (I am Asian). Back then, in New York City, itappeared as though we were the only couple of that racial combination. We probablysaw one other couple in a year. I am not exaggerating if I say that now I see at least 5 aday. A few years ago, I was convinced that the increase was due to the popularity ofChow Yun-Fat in Hollywood, but I have a new theory that does not replace but adds tomy original theory.

When you fill out the questionnaire for online dating, you can specify the race ofyour ideal mate. You are allowed to check as many as you want. Most people cannotallow themselves to check only a few, for they do not want people to think they areracist. They thus check races they would not otherwise consider under ordinarycircumstances. Computer and Web users are a specific demographic in itself, and itcontains a larger percentage of Asians than normal. So, there is a good chance a Whitewoman would be contacted by an Asian man. When this happens, they end up crossingthe border that they normally would not. After seeing each other on a date, they realizethat it’s not such a bad idea, so they go along with it.

This can be confirmed by simply going up to the couples of this particularcombination and asking them if they met online. At least, it is true for one couple I



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personally know. (If anyone is interested enough to conduct this research, please let meknow the result.)

If this is true, it must be true for many other racial combinations, and is a greatstep towards eliminating racism. Even today, racial segregation is still a big problem.When we segregate racially, we encourage cultural segregations on top of it, becauseeach group will necessarily develop its own culture that suits its own environment andcircumstances. It then becomes more than just racial, and further strengthens thesegregation. Online dating, and other networking systems like Friendster, can helploosen up these segregations. If this is true, and I hope it is, technology has finallycontributed something substantial to increasing the quality of our lives.

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r36 - does technology improve quality of our lives

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