A young dinosaur???

This post threatens to herald my arrival as an out of touch dinosaur when I am still only 30! However, I am finding myself increasingly concerned, frustrated and maddened by the reliance our society places on technology rather than people. I booked 6 tickets to go to the Twickenham Rugby 7's in a couple of weeks. Despite not actually receiving my tickets yet, when I phoned up to add a couple more tickets I was told that I wouldn't be able to move my existing booking so all 8 of us could sit together as their computer system wouldn't allow it. My only option would be to try and sell my existing tickets through their sister company (for a small fee) and then buy 8 new tickets. When re-entering Britain from a recent trip to Greece I had the option of going through the electronic passport control rather than to one of the people sitting there - I chose, despite never finding friendly passport control officer, that I still wanted that human contact. The funny bit was that my 70 year old Dad wanted to use the electronic system to keep up with modern times. I worry that machines can never have the flexibility that a person has. I hate it that supermarkets now have self service checkouts and slowly are eradicating another aspect of personal contact people have.

Technology is very useful (the irony that I am using a blog to complain about the use of modern technology has not been lost on me!), I very rarely go out without my mobile phone. But the reliance we now have on it is worrying. Our communities are gradually being lost as we try and make times like shopping more efficient by removing the human aspect with online shopping and now self service checkouts. Our town centres are becoming less uniques as we demand the same shops as everywhere else.

I have found myself realising the usefulness of technology. As a Spurs fan I know that increased technology would have ensured we beat Chelsea at the weekend. However, I don't want football to become another mechanical event. Human error is part of the game - we accept it from players when they miss shots or goalies fumble the ball, so why is the ref any different?

For the sake of our society and our local communities we need to fight to keep technology in its place. It should be used to make life easier and better, but it should never be allowed to take over our lives as it is doing at the moment. As I lay in bed on Sunday thinking this over this song ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMnhsr1IJQs&fmt=18 ) from Kate Rusby came onto the radio. It sums up my thoughts totally. We must defend all that is precious to us - both new and old ideas together.