Wireless technology’s development and evolution in the past decade or even the past two decades has been tremendous. If you think back, you might remember having to always be tethered to something in order to communicate with someone or having to lug around a giant machine just to do something simple. Take the mobile telephone for example: years ago, it served only one purpose – to call someone. But now, after so many years and advancements in technology, the mobile phone has evolved into the smartphone, bolstering hundreds of features. In just a 5.6 inch screen – or what have you, you can call others, send emails, watch movies, listen to music, conduct mathematical equations and even more recently, wirelessly charge the device. It’s like author had Victor Epand said in his “Social Impacts The Telephone And The Cell Phone Has Had On Society” article, “Without doubt, mobile telephony offers enormous advantages and added convenience, greater personal security, and the ability to take advantage of ‘dead’ time to do business on the move.”
But the advancement of wireless technology doesn’t come with no cost. There’s the obvious cost of having to pay for wireless technology. But disregarding its financial impact, think about its environmental impact. Wireless technology works via antennas, routers and satellites that communicate from across the world, into countries, cities and various neighborhoods. In a once pleasant skyline of buildings and lights at night, “Many cities around the world are becoming blighted by a gaggle of ugly mobile antennae”. The beautiful roads of a city with people, flowery detail and trees lining the path are now subject to wireless technology and its infrastructure of electrical poles, telephone lines and the likes, detracting the beauty of the scene.
Wireless technology may be great for that convenience factor, but it also affects the environment. Not only that, it can affect our perception of personal space. Say you lived in a neighborhood of hundreds in the country side or by the mountains and everyday you wake to a beautiful sunrise. The sun’s rays beam over the mountain tops and casts its orange-yellow hue across your neighborhood whilst the birds chirped from the nearby birdhouse. You would think that you have a beautiful and serene private space to tend to yourself. And yet, you’re wrong. The companies of wireless technology have decided there is potential in expanding the wireless range across to your region to offer its technology. In order to do so, they pummel through your land to install antennas atop houses and electrical poles replace the daisies and roses that lines the dirt road. Congratulations, your neighborhood is now equip with wireless technology. You’re private space is now connected to the rest of the world.
Before wireless technology, private spaces were just a place of solitude and all you had to do was avoid people. But with technology, not only do you have to avoid people in person, you also have to avoid them online. You can’t enjoy a nice private sunbathing session with your friends and family calling you on the phone every other minute.
