Overusing technology won't make you happy

Overusing technology won't make you happy

Vishnu K. Mahmud, Contributor, Jakarta, vmahmud@yahoo.com

By nature, I am a tech junkie. Whenever the latest hi-tech
product comes out, be it a PDA, laptop computer or MP3 player,
I've just got to have it.

When was the last time you remember seeing people carrying
paper-based day planners, simple calculators or cassette-based
walkmans? Instead of using public phones, just whip out your
cell phone and make the call on the go.

It seems that technology has made our lives better. Or has it?

Do all these gadgets and gizmos really advance mankind? Or do
they make life more complicated, and more prone to security
threats and privacy problems?

Considering that the cost of technology continues to fall as
new products come out, are we now so dependent on advanced tech
tools that we have forgotten how to use simple, low-tech
solutions?

Take the elections for example. The General Elections
Commission (KPU) recently held a controversial tender for
Information Technology equipment to be installed throughout the
archipelago. They plan to have computers in practically every
regency in the country in a bid to speed up the election returns.

The same can be seen in the United States. California is one
of many states that are beginning to use touch screen voting
technology to try and avoid the comical yet tragic problems that
occurred in Florida during the last American Presidential
election.

Can these tools improve the time and accuracy of the ballot
count?

In America, people are beginning to ask questions regarding
the viability of the technology. For example, "close sourced"
software is used, making it impossible to know what exactly the
voting machines are programmed to do or calculate during the
polls.

In addition, under the original specifications, voters were
not given receipts to ensure that the computers recorded their
ballots accurately.

The State of California, under intense scrutiny, ordered
changes to the system as democracy advocates called for e-voting
standards to be established.

For Indonesia, it is planned that thousands of computers will
be linked to a central data center, which would transmit and
tabulate the results in real time.

However, the costs of the hardware and software are
considerable for a country that is still trying to crawl out of
the economic crisis of the late 1990's. In the quest to ensure a
fast and accurate election, was a simpler method overlooked?

We can perhaps look at Canada for an example. A friend of mine
was recently the Deputy Returning Officer at one of the many
voting stations for the Quebec provincial election last year. A
life-long tech geek, she had to administer the entire process by
hand.

Her duties included greeting people, explaining the voting
process, ensuring the sanctity of each ballot, and finally
counting as well as certifying the results. After the polling
station closed, it took less then four hours for the returning
officers to tally the results, which were then reported to the
election office.

The Canadian poll did not require state of the art computer
systems or touch-screen voting machines. Nor did it require
millions of dollars of investment in supporting infrastructure
such as high-speed networks and electric power.

The entire process in Canada was successfully conducted thanks
to the political involvement of its citizens and, most
importantly, well organized preparations.

All the technology in the world does not guarantee speedy or
accurate returns in a ballot count. Careful preparations and
open, public participation in the elections, however, can enhance
public confidence in the polls and ensure that no "monkey
business" occurs.

This low-tech solution is also not prone to any potential
security or privacy problems that could ultimately plague
computer-based models.

Information Technology solutions have the potential to be
programmed and diverted from their original purpose by corrupt
parties involved in the democratic process. An open count by the
people, however, is a pretty powerful balance in any democracy.

As such, we might do well to take a step back and see if we
are the masters of technology, or whether technology is making us
into slaves. With all these gizmos, are we actually more
organized?

In most cases, we simply stored more junk then we actually
need, cluttering up our lives up with unnecessary information.
Can we really say we are better off than we were before?