Some technological advances are definitely mixed blessings

Has there ever been a technological advance that was in widespread use that was later abandoned?

If so, it would have to be something that turned out to have unforeseen negative consequences, and at this point I can't think of one. I certainly think of things that have been far more mixed blessings than we originally thought, but they haven't been abandoned.

More often than not, progress comes in the form of mixed blessings. In the play "Inherit the Wind," set in the 1920s, the Clarence Darrow character tells the audience"

"You can fly in the air, but the birds will lose their mystery and the clouds will smell of gasoline."

Before the invention of the airplane, millions and millions of Americans lived their entire lives within 50-100 miles of where they were born. As recently as the end of World War II, nearly half of American soldiers being discharged said they wanted nothing more than to return to their home town.

But progress got in the way.


If that sounds sarcastic, bear with me. In the 70-plus years since WWII ended, we have had both good and bad progress. Our population more than doubled, and we added all sorts of labor-saving devices.

But along about the 1960s, much more of the progress had to do with leisure time. We went from radio to television to cable television to VCRs to DVDs to Tivo, onward and upward. Television programming started out with three or four hours a night on three or four networks.

By the mid to late '50s, most stations were on the air as much as 18 hours a day, coming on with shows like "Sunrise Semester" at 6 a.m. and signing off at midnight with either the national anthem or something called High Flight.



Television was insidious. Numerous studies have shown that excessive TV viewing actually had the effect of making people more passive, since there was plenty of input with no response required. The difference between television programming and earlier radio programming was an important one. Radio was someone telling you a story and you painting a picture in your mind to flesh out the story.

Eventually, television got better -- or worse, depending on your point of view. Not only was it always on, not only were there hundreds of channels, but with the right equipment or the right subscriptions, you could watch anything anytime.

And if really knew what you were doing, anything goes. In 1975, a movie called "Snuff" purported to be a film with an actual murder in it. It wasn't, but it was reasonably grotesque anyway. The coming of video recorders and later of DVD players opened up a huge new market for hardcore pornography. Meanwhile, mainstream television shows kept getting worse and worse.

But for all the horrifying effects of television, it still isn't the most insidious technological advance.

Not even close.

Television may poison your intellect and make you more passive, but there's another advance that took the worst of television and added features that all but destroyed your personal privacy.

Home computers, including the later developments of laptops, tablets, smartphones, GPS and the Internet.

There are reportedly two billion home computers in the world, and the market has evolved rapidly. In 2017, only 5 percent of sales are expected to be desktop computers, while 70 percent will be smartphones.

Did you know that when you carry a smartphone around with you, the GPS chip inside makes it possible for anyone with the proper technology to know exactly where you are?

Did you know that a home computer connected to the Internet essentially makes it possible for anyone, whether government. criminal or a combination of the two, to access nearly anything about you? That includes passwords, account numbers and anything else useful.

Did you know that making a phone call on a cellular phone is the equivalent of using a walkie-talkie or even making a radio broadcast. Anyone who knows which frequency you're using can listen in on your call?

Heck, even a game console -- Playstation, Wii or Xbox -- when hooked into your computer can give someone an entree into your computer and all your personal data.

Does privacy matter anymore?

Or have online pornography, political chat and sports betting sites become so important to us that our privacy no longer matters?

I have a feeling that we're living through an unpleasant phase that will eventually end. We're going to reach a point where privacy and opportunity to work matter more than better and better leisure activities.

In most of our lifetimes, we haven't seen advances that are abandoned. One could argue that the atomic bomb is one of those. It was used twice in 1945 and has never been used since. There has always been the threat, but no one has used it.

It may sound far-fetched, but I have a feeling 20 or 30 years from now, there won't be an Internet unless far better security is developed.

Ditto with cellular phones.

Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.