Technophobia (The case of the Silicon based monsters.....)

One of the most hip things about technology is that, well it's totally hip! Today's most current tech will be ancient and long gone in a couple of months. You can buy a 1GB pen today for 3000Rs now and think it's a great bargain, but wait another couple of months and you'll find that a better model with more capacity and added features will be there for the same price.

The same goes for software; you may think that Sony Vegas or Pinnacle might have the best video editing features, but when your friend who's a complete amateur manages to pull off some better with Windows Movie Maker the phrase 'pissed off' will be an understatement.

This never ending change puts a lot of people with not-so-friendly terms with technology. People run away from anything new which might lead them through a learning curve and involuntarily anything that has a transistor plugged to it becomes an enemy of the self.

A joint research study done by LirneAsia and ACNielson found out that 16% of Sri Lankans that do not have a phone of their own say that they don't see a need to have a personal phone. According to the study this reason for not having a phone of their own was only second to that of affordability issue.

This notion of tech reluctance is alarming. Theoretically technology is supposed to make your life easier. So why are people so negative about technology?

Cell phones should put you at ease not make you feel more complicated. Emails should save you the trouble of getting the message across rather than bombarding you with spam, malware and everything else that comes free of charge. And officially computers *are* meant to make you productive.....It's not supposed to sound hysterical, but we are really supposed to save time using technology.

In fact some of us are smart enough to use organizers, project management software, integrated RSS browsers, VoIP and intelligent pieces of software that really do increase our aspects of life. As the popular website lifehacker.com puts it, "Don't live to geek; geek to live." (The website is also a haven if you're looking for good productive software...)

To put it in simpler terms, technology is like a knife. You need to sharpen the blade before you use it. It will definitely save more time, energy, effort and frustration if you sharpen it before using it. So take some time off to learn some new tricks and think about how you can use tech to be more productive.

At the very least it will keep journalists like us from preaching and non profit organizations like LirneAsia from writing lengthy papers and reports. So please, go ahead and indulge yourself in some technology. You might even learn not to regret it later!