I listened to a great podcast by Radiolab the other day. I usually find their podcast entertaining and enlightening, but I found this this episode particularly intriguing. Here's the episode, but if you want to visit the Radiolab site and listen from there, here's a direct link:

A quick summary, for those of you who won't listen to the podcast. (Though I implore you to listen and donate if you can!) Dawn of Midi is a band that has developed a unique sound through a mixture of friendly competition and experimentation. In essence, they play traditional instruments using sounds and rhythms akin to a computer. The "MIDI" in their band name is the acronym for "Musical Instrument Digital Interface," a virtual language for music.

My favorite section of the podcast — and the reason I’m writing today — occurs just after nine minutes in, when a band member notes a changing tide in which people are discovering ways to reproduce technological advances without technology. One example from the podcast is tow-in surfing, when a surfer gets pulled into a big wave by a jet-ski. Now, surfers are discovering that they can surf big waves without the jet-skis, by using their arms to paddle. But they needed the technology, the jet-skis, to even show them it was possible.

The segment says a lot about a forgotten side of technology, or at least one that gets lost in a continued rush for smaller and faster. Technology is a tool for efficiency and discovery. Depending on circumstances, technology can be new, shiny and futuristic, or it can be simple and inelegant. Technology can ease burdens and save time, so humans can expend their energy in other ways. Technology can allow people more time, and new ways, to discover.

As makers and users, we tend to lose sight of the interplay between technology and human beings. Our culture moves at such a pace that we've tended to lose sight of what makes technology so important: Technology is a path to simplicity, clarity and understanding.

The pace at which our culture develops technology has turned into a reverence for novelty. New and fast is the norm, and that leads to a tendency to value short-term gains over long-term benefits. That tendency is also symptomatic of the monetization and consumerization of technology. Because advertising pays businesses for impressions, some businesses exist and use technology solely to serve advertisements to users — regardless of whether the user benefits at all.

I believe the key is a stronger focus on user value and benefit. There are ways that advertising and technology can benefit each other, as well as the user. I, for one, am annoyed by irrelevant or aggressive advertising, but I’m not annoyed by advertising that’s apt or beneficial to me. (There’s a fine line here in terms of privacy, but I’ll discuss that at a later juncture.) The same goes for technology, which I appreciate for function and ease of use more then style.*

Technology is a form of exploration. Exploration leads to discovery — discovery of meaning, method, and possibility. Perhaps, rather than answering, "Why not?" we should also answer, "What does it mean?" As in, what does it mean for users? For society? For future applications? If we take the time to reflect, maybe we'll see a better version of ourselves in the mirror. Maybe we’ll discover the impulses that brought us to here. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll start willing more beneficial things into existence, rather than creating throwaway, white-noise products.

* I appreciate function and ease of use above style if I had to choose between the two. That said, I do appreciate style. I think a great example about the connection between function and style is when Apple made its climb after Steve Jobs’s return. Their advertising was stark. They simply put their products in front of white or black backgrounds with sparse text. But their products worked and spoke for themselves. Apple was democratizing technology, with beautiful products, and the user’s imagination that evoked new ways Apple products could be applied. That relationship is much better than when advertising bullshit is used to mask a limited and poorly designed product. In those instances, all the energy is wasted holding up a reality that does not actually exist, rather than applied to making things better.