Smart Tech is Taking Over our Homes – Should we be Concerned?

Decades ago, films and TV shows dreamed about the kinds of things that we take for granted nowadays.

The notion of being able to ask a computer to turn the lights on or see who is at the front door without even leaving our seat is something that people of the 1980s would’ve thought was the stuff of dreams. Yet for those that have such products in their homes, it is an every day occurrence.

What the makers of smart devices will be delighted to know is that, for a lot of people, they are taking over our homes. For those of us to whom it is happening, the question to ask is whether that’s a good thing.

Smart Tech Fosters Laziness

There is a reality about the world right now that shows that people are largely far more lazy than they should be. In 2024, a report by the World Health Organisation suggested that as many as 1.4 billion people are not physically active, which amounts to around one in four adults on the planet. Physical inactivity not only leads to laziness but is also linked to a mortality risk of between 20% and 30% in adults.

Unsurprisingly, inactivity is also linked to obesity, with as much as 3% of an impact on the GDP of American coming about because of obesity. It is clearly a problem, yet it is also one that smart tech moves to exacerbate.

It might not sound like much, but getting up to physically turn the lights off will burn calories. Having to move off the couch in order to find out who is at the door rather than simply looking at an app on the phone will have an impact on our physical health.

Sure, none of that is sexy or as interesting as heading to the gym or going for a swim, yet not doing any of it is having a huge impact on where we all are from a health standpoint. It used to be that something such as hoovering or mowing the lawn was seen as being able to burn calories, but now we can have robots do such things for us without ever having to worry about it.

Convenience at What Price?

There is no question that smart tech has introduced a convenience to our lives like never before. Whether it be Sky or a generic Smart TV, we now have the ability to simply speak what it is that we want to watch and the tech will sort it all out for us. Smart speakers can turn on the radio or some other form of music at the drop of a hat, to say nothing of allow us to watch streaming services such as Netflix or Apple TV.

Even our mobile phones, which couldn’t really be any more accessible than they already are, require only for you to say your ‘wake word’ before a virtual assistant can carry out your demands pretty much immediately.

@brett.tech ⚠️ THIS IS A BIG DEAL AND NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT IT⚠️ (DIY tech like this has been avail for awhile, but this now being so accessable is huge) #smarthome #homeautomation #automation #home #tech #techtok #applehome #homekit #homepod #applewatch #diy #fyp #alexa #siri #hack #nfc ♬ original sound – brett.tech

All of this convenience in our homes, offices and even when we’re driving is obviously good news. The question is about what the cost has been. Being able to use a smart assistant at work might make you a touch more productive, but is it also taking something away from the worker?

It is interesting to see how much things have changed in a location such as a place of work, with fewer businesses being willing to engage with smart tech than homes are. Is the willingness of people to look towards smart decides costing something in the way of human connection? If you can get a smart speaker to read a bedtime story instead of you, maybe it’s time to have a rethink about your priorities.

What we Should Learn From Sat-Navs

When satellite navigation equipment first launched, it was seen as an incredibly useful piece of technology that would help millions, if not billions, of people all around the world. In many ways, that was complete true. Whether it be built into our cars or simply on our phones, folks of all shapes and sizes use a sat-have of some sort to navigate their way around places both unknown and familiar.

You can use it to get yourself to a house you might never have been to before or follow a pin dropped by a friend to meet up with them at a bar that you’re unfamiliar with. The technology is amazing, there is little to no question of that.

The day before Thanksgiving…. a vehicle drives into a pool at the Hilton Garden Inn at 12245 Katy Freeway. Unknown as to why, but HFD says the people in the car got out (while the car was in the pool) before first responders arrived. No injuries. Image from #KHOU Air 11 pic.twitter.com/F2gWhIstLs

— The Bishop (@BillBishopKHOU) November 27, 2024

The problem is that many of us have become too reliant on it. We are so used to being able to use our sat-nav device in the car to learn how to drive from one place to another. We have become fixated with turning to a map device on our phone rather than figure out how to get somewhere using our own brain power so that if our phone ran out of battery countless people would be completely lost with no idea how to get anywhere.

Technology is a wonderful addition to our lives, but when we become dependent on it it can leave us completely and utterly stranded, literally as well as metaphorically, which is what we need to guard against.