Technology Knows Humans

Even though overusing technology can be detrimental to our health, technology has helped our generation and it will continue helping the next generation, Generation Z to keep progressing. In my previous blogs I have done research on how technology is affecting the way users feel and how it is affecting children and infants by restricting their movements. That is not to say that we don’t need technology and that we can’t benefit from it.

“Depressed? Your Cellphone Might be Able to Diagnose You”, is an article by Melissa Healy that talks about how your cellphone patterns can provide data to diagnose you for depression. The research that was conducted stated that based on, “how much you use them, how long you use them, where you are and how much and when you move around,” depression could be detected in the cellphone user. The article also stated that on average depressed individuals spent sixty-eight minutes on their phones while non-depressed students spent seventeen minutes on their phone.

Even though this was a small test done on a group on individuals it brought the fact that even though the subjects would say that they felt fine their cellphones could track patterns that were similar to those of people who suffer from depression. This is to say that our cellphones have the potential to save us from ourselves.

In the LA Times article, “How Big Data is Shaping the Way Business Does Business,” they state that just by using your smartphone you can give big amounts of data’s to companies via social media or any other type of app on your phone. Morgan Swink, executive director of the Center for Supply Chain Innovation at the Neeley Business School at Fort Worth’s Texas Christian University says, “Companies use big data to restock inventory, design products and spot business trends to greater effect than ever before.” By receiving data from the consumer businesses are able to, “’to perfect efficiency and quality so we don’t need so much inventory, there are fewer defects and we are not making products people don’t want,’ Swink said.” All of the data that is received from smartphones and the internet allows businesses to know the consumers needs, it is essentially getting to know people.

Technology has the ability to cater to the demands of humans as a way to help us obtain what we need and what we may want. It can not remedy a sickness but it can give information on what a person or group of people might need now and in the future.