Is technology really bringing us closer together?

Sure it is. Most of us can't imagine a world without cell phones where anyone can be reached virtually anywhere and anytime. Frankly this has made me want to move to a country that has a more than average amount of tunnels. We can also reach out to people around the world instantaneously via e-mail. This has been great since I'm too cheap to buy a stamp and too lazy to go to the post office.

Now technology is trying to bring us even closer together through social mapping. Now this is a fancy and exciting sounding name but it basically boils down to GPS tracking. You see your cell phone used to make calls. Then it was used to text message, show pictures, download ringtones, surf the net, etc. Now you'll shortly be given the option of having your phone tracked through GPS and by allowing your company to track your phone, you'll be allowing them to track you. This is what is called social mapping, not spying, that term is much less marketable. To get you to buy this service, the phone companies will then provide you with alerts once your phone and the phone of one of your friends are within a predetermined distance of each other. They then assume that you will call up your buddy to make plans to meet since you're in the same general area and for the phone company's benefit have more reasons to use your phone more often and eat up those minutes.

Now I'm not knocking this service completely as it will probably help people see friends more often in person but do you really want people to know all the time where you are? Some of the time or most of the time maybe but definitely not all of the time.

Now you know that with every technology there is an evil aspect trying to get out. Congratulations, you're work phone will now most likely be used to track your every move. The same will happen to kids with overprotective parents or ones who simply have trust issues. And hey, you're bound to hear a few stories of a guy coming home early just to get an alert that his best friend is in the area and in fact right in his bedroom. I won't even mention the people who have the big brother theories.

Yup. Technology sure makes life a little more interesting.

Cyber Jock