Obese Technology

Before I start the blog, I will like to make clear that I am a techno-savvy person and use the innovative technology available. However, considering the parallel growth of technology I feel that the use of technology is becoming more of an overhead and not used in an optimum manner.
By saying this, I mean everyday we spent hours checking emails of which most are irrelevant and forward mails. Mails sent on the some groups, listservs and mailing list constitute the major emails of the day. Then with so much free email providers, we normally tend to have more than one email account that multiplies the time spent.
Nowadays there is a buzz around the social networking services like face book, orkut, gazzag mingle minds etc… If you are a recent college graduate, there is a high probability that you may be an active member of one of such communities. This again is an overhead which can be anywhere from five minutes to hours of web surfing. If you add the online photos, and videos the situation is worsen.
And after all these activities if you sign-in any instant messenger service then be rest assured that its lunch time before you start the day’s work. The instant messenger service is a great service where one can talk with his/her friends or relatives any where in the world. However, to use the technology to discuss about weekend plans or cooking recipes is where the problem starts.
One more thing I notice is the use of search engines like Yahoo, Google, MSN etc... The search results are so overwhelming that even though you get the information required; time is spent surfing for some other search results that seem “interesting”.
To add to this is the issue of excessive and redundant cell phone usage. Especially with national and international calls getting cheaper day-by-day the average call time is increasing proportionally.
The average number of television channels in 1985 was 18.8, 1990: 33.2, 1995: 41.1, 2000: 61.4 and 2005: 96.4.In 2006 it went up to 104.2. Just surfing through these 104.2 channels is a time consuming activity. At the end of it, we are confused and overwhelmed with choices that we may again start the surfing cycle.
We invented the technology to make things better, save time, automate tasks and in general increase our productivity. Nevertheless, with the obese use of technology we are not serving the purpose it is meant for. My point here is that we need a vertical growth and usage of technology and not horizontal which is making it obese. I hope my point is clear.