Question: Are you concerned with the increasing usage of technology and how society is becoming more reliant upon the use of electrisity in their everyday lives? If so, why? Also, how do you think this could be prevented in the future?

Lowri Evans answered on 17 Mar 2016:

Hello Sophie,

Great question! I am a little concerned, yes, as I feel we are becoming too dependent on it. I’m taking part in a little research project on the side for Sainsbury’s, who are looking at the way that their customers use technology for shopping. I had never realised before that so few people use a physical shopping list, and just have it on their phones! In a world where “there’s an app for that” for everything, we rely on it way too much. I think things like our spelling abilities are getting worse too, as auto correct is always there to help us out.

We rely on it because it makes everything easy. We live in a society where we’re always planning ahead, and usually trying to do several things at once, so technology being able to take away some of those tasks is useful. I think this is partially why the Mindfulness trend is becoming really big at the moment, which is essentially the notion of being “in the moment” in everything that we do, and not flapping about what’s going to happen in an hours time. I’m hoping that in a world that is increasingly automated, that things like mindfulness take off, otherwise we’re going to really stress ourselves out!