Thursday, August 6, 2009

Reflection on the miracle of technology

As I am clearing the dishes from dinner, I am listening to the father/daughter bonding happening in the dining room and pause for a moment to reflect.

To reflect on technology.

Why, you may ask, would I take that particular moment and that particular context to start thinking about technology?

Oh, please. Let me tell you.

Because, while I am in the kitchen dealing with the leftovers, the child comes and takes my iPhone out of my pocket. She gleefully takes it into the other room. I hear low voices. Suddenly, my phone rings. I move out to the dining room in case it is something important for... you know... me... since it's my phone and all.... It's not. It's my husband calling calling the child from two feet away.

Thus, I paused for a moment to consider the technological achievements that went into creating this device -- a beautifully designed cell phone that looks like nothing more than a piece of black glass but does so much more. This wonderful device takes his voice, beams it into outer space, finds my equally lovely device (now sitting in a five-year-old's greasy hands), beams it BACK down from space to a physical location two feet from where it started.

What does this amazing process communicate? An "I love you?" No. The sound I hear lingering in the hallway was nothing quite so sweetly elegant.

I heard a belch. A belch echoing as only a cell phone speaker hearing itself from two feet away can belch. Then comes the child's sad little attempt to imitate it. Than another, and another.

It sort of puts the world of technology into perspective, doesn't it?