Technology & Humanity – Is Humanity Lost?

All a computer company do is just make things faster and faster and faster. That really is their business isn’t it?

Technology – Making life efficient & things faster

I was in the studio working on some music for a book when a stranger popped in asking me if I had the Samson Meteor Mic in stock. Lucky for him I had the mic in stock, so I explained some little things about how it should work and all. He then said ok, I’ll buy the microphone. Good I thought!

Then he asked if he could pay by credit card. And there was the problem, I didn’t have a credit card machine to accept payments.

But hey luckily we had Paypal. So the client whipped out his iPhone and then he sent the payment over to my account in a few minutes or so. We sat down for a good 10 minutes chat about some business and ideas and that was all good.

After he had left, I thought to myself how amazing technology can be these days. With your Paypal account linked with your credit card you could just walk around and pay for things. No need to visit the bank. I mean, he just paid for the microphone within a few minutes, just using a phone! We basically get things done faster, sell things online (like music shop), do business better and the world shall be a good place right?

However, my client shared his good experience with me. Here’s what motivated him to buy the microphone in the first place.

He knew what he wanted. He had used the exact same microphone before. Plus he came to visit me at the studio before purchasing it. If he haven’t used the microphone before in his life, he would have second thoughts before buying it. What more, buying it off an online store.

Now this is what I call the human touch. We are so surrounded with technology which makes things so fast and efficient, yet we need that human touch. Everyear there are thousands of bloggers and developers who hold events & meetups. Now, if they are so fused with technology, why can’t they just hold the event online and meet online?

It’s simply because in anything we do, we’ll need that human touch. When you agree on things, you’ll shake hands and go, ‘hey, we’ve agreed’. What if you and I were talking about a deal. And at the end, when you stood up, put out your hand to shake mine, I said, no, we don’t have to shake hands. I don’t want to shake hands. What would you feel? That I’m arrogant, not trust-able or which?

So my fear, is that though lots of musicians and producers are collaborating online, across the world, we have lost that human touch. More and more people are staying indoors, just typing away at their computer. Music is being shared over the internet on Youtube and basically video streaming sites. We rely a lot on technology, but anytime possible, we should go out and meet our collaborators and friends in person.

Shake hands, laugh and have a meal together. Only that way, a special bond will be built. And when people get together with the same goals and same mission, special things happens.