In a recent study quoted by TIME Magazine, 1 in 3 people in the U.S., U.K., China and Australia feel "overwhelmed" by new social media and technology. Truly it's not hard to imagine people simply pulling the plug, marching into the woods, subsisting from roots and berries and making their clothes out of lamb's wool. Technology literally leapfrogs every year, and often the newest devices are made obsolete significantly faster than one has the disposable income to purchase the next generation. The average micro-processor is obsolete within less than a year. Software is often updated annually and operating systems every two years. New means of sharing information, pictures, data, video, and our "cyber-selves" are literally choking up broadband and compiling into app stores ad nauseam. It's not surprising that people feel overwhelmed.

     However, is all of this "innovation" (I add quotes because 90% of the stuff is regurgitated from somewhere else...kind of like blogging) a product of the perpetual quest to create efficiencies and negate busywork, or is it a greater calling for the laziest instincts in us all? Frankly, the question itself is slightly unfair because much of our innovation is repackaging to "reup" profits. However, the basic component of it holds truth: why do we go to all this effort to make life easier (even though it can feel harder)? Are we striving for greater independence and efficiency or are we striving for less work and more leisure?

     The answer, of course, is both. Doing one's taxes used to consist of several nights, dad hunched over a small receipt machine, piling through receipts and W-2's and deductions and flipping through an immense volume of tax law to make sure he did it right. Most threw up their hands and just had a tax lawyer do it. Now, my wife and I generally bust it out in about an hour online, lately less because we now have most of our online forms saved. There you have it; independence, efficiency, and the leisure to watch Conan after we're done.

     A recent "Alt Text" post  in Wired online disagrees. Lore Sjoberg admonishes the legion of people that don't want the updated software, that don't want to have to buy the latest gadget to make the gizmo work, that are tired of constantly updating, for being lazy. Yes, people that fight the next big thing are "convenience-haters" and "detestable". In fact, he compares them to priests denouncing the evils of adultery on one hand by getting a BJ from under the pulpit; a comparison he makes because nay-sayers resist technological change on one hand yet benefit from it on the other. I'm not sure how many people are truly making a better wage or an easier day with the Windows Vista OS debacle, including Microsoft executives. On the other hand, he makes the point that the impetus for all technological innovation is the desire to work less, yet despite being in one of the most technologically advanced societies on the globe Americans nonetheless work longer days and take less vacation than anyone else in the developed world. Of course, most of Sjoberg's anecdotal support comes from the technological innovations of the atlatl and the lightbulb, which were a bit more integral to human progress, in context, than the latest Windows update.

     I do not contest the notion that many people are lazy when it comes to having to learn a new user interface or software program, in the same way that I think that the tech-savvy staff at Wired probably have office parties with the release of new operating systems. I don't consider resistance to learning detestable or bad, and being a teacher, I feel that's saying something. The sheer volume of "tech" that floods the market each year is enough for anyone to throw up their hands and throw their PC out the window. Whether this is simply a transitional period between two epochs in humanity's technological progress or a testament to rampant consumerism remains to be seen, but I don't think a little curmudgeonly derisive snorting ever hurt an economy gorged on "the next big thing" or a culture so accepting of obsolescence.