Killing ourselves softly - Technology's affect on the way we live and function

Gone are the days of the now archaic where pens, pencils and paper ruled the workplace. Gone are the days eyes didn't fry in the presence of numerous computer screens staring from their elevated perches down, directly into our faces. Gone are the days people leave the office still feeling human after they spent their day on their feet or moving around. Gone are the days of the athletic or predominantly physical active journalist or public relations consultant who spent their days running around an office - at least they were active - all for that perfect story that would bump them ever so slightly up the eschalons of communicative prowess.

If you haven't deduced my thought thread already, then prepare for enlightenment: the revolting state of employment I and many of us now find ourselves in involves the modern-day office - an abyss of computer technology gone crazy that renders the use of our hands as tools of writing, drawing and creation: useless. Renders our eyes mere technological receptors, susceptible to the radiation emitted from, as I mentioned before, the many screens that no doubt fill the room we sit in and no doubt have unspeakable, somewhat ghastly long-term consequences. Alas, many of us have no choice or don't care; blinded by the almighty dollar to be made.

The contemporary office and to a degree home has been transformed into a technological 'haven' - to use the word loosely - where fingers push buttons and a multitude of life-altering things take place. The push of a button can see hours, days and weeks or work removed or saved forever in some digital sequence of 1s and 0s. The push of a button can see your 'social network' expand or be demised via the web 2.0 world. The push of a button can see posts on blogs, not unlike this one, be created, commented-on or removed. The push of a button in the presence of another damned screen can see the subsequent frying of yet another neuron and singeing of another eyeball.

I know, I've adopted a soothsayer's perspective of the destruction of life as we used to know it as a reult of computer technology which in actual fact has revolutionised and bettered far beyond anyone ever thought possible, our lives and the way we function, but with one sacrifice, physical activity.

Not that I am the world's most physcial buff who thrives on a heavy heartbeat and fast-paced exertion, but I'd still fancy the odd ray of sunlight in the outdoors as I move from job-to-job, intervciew-to-interview or client-to-client, as well as the odd 'boom-boom' of a heartbeat, forced to elate just that little bit as I walk, as opposed to 'thump, thump' as I sit here at my work computer for going on the ninth hour, typing away.

Children, teens and adults of this day and age rely on computers, there is no denying. Companies rely on electronic funds transfers and god knows it has revolutionised world economies to the point where billions and trillions of dollars are transferred, bought, sold and traded daily and momentarily with nothing more than the push of a button - one of the many benefits of technology.

However, despite the perceived and actual benefits of computer technology, I worry about the health of the workers in my predicament - sitting at a desk for days a week at a computer. What health compromises are being made? What physical damage is being done? Why do we all embrace such a lifestyle now with such lassaiz-faire attitudes?

Children growing-up today - and we have all seen it, nay experienced it ourselves - rather play the Playstation or Computer games than go outside, kick the footy, play cricket or walk the dog. We see it everywhere, I know I do and admittedly am guilty of it at times; regardless of the mild poison I just spat about the said technology.

Aside from providing that escape from the real world that we all love and indulge-on at times, the only product to be released since the advent of the computer as 'human existence' that provides some basis of physical activity while you use it is of course, the Nintendo Wii. The video game platform that actually encourages physcial activity and movement, rather than most Westerner's favourite position - seated. Whoever concocted this little gem of marketing success must be reaping the rewards and being held in very high esteem by physical educaters, physical activity advocates and anti-computer gaming activists (if such a thing exists?)

It is sad the way humans have moved from the once oh so physcial, now...not so much state that we now rely on and are all too familiar with.

Some, like me, wouldn't mind the odd walk-about necessity or the need to run-around the office in hopes of getting that job done, or having that story published, but I am a realist, and I see through the 17" screen I now stare at that the future way of the world, is through the monotonous tapping of keys, clicking of mice and blank staring of humanity into a digital projection of our 'lives'.