Help! I think I need thumb surgery.

Despite tremendous advances in efficiency and acquisition of knowledge that computers bring us, the way we communicate with computers is still a crude series of painful, repetitive gestures and keystrokes, bringing a myriad of injuries to our frail bodies. Software still has a high rate of failure, breeding a culture where restarting and/or rebooting is a way of life.

Thanks to the recent proliferation of cellular phones, users may browse the internet and chat with friends all over the world. Users of cellular phones face injury as they flail their thumbs and crouch in hunched postures. Immersion in cellular phone technology is rapidly eroding the rules of polite society as owners grow catatonic in public, enraptured behind tiny glowing screens in restaurants, markets, and on the street.  The zombies we fear on the big screen have come to haunt our families as children no longer pay attention to parents or even other children. Perhaps they talk to people in the same room, but only after abbreviated sentences get relayed hundreds of miles over crowded cellular networks. Transfixed by activity on their phones, pedestrians run headlong into each other having failed to look where they are walking.

Meanwhile, users of personal computers and cell phones alike are quite used to having to restart the computer or the app after mysterious failures. It seems that software has been created in a hurry without proper testing, and nobody is willing to go back and fix it.

20 years after promises of the “paperless office,” paper filing systems are still essential.

If the promises of yesteryear were truly honored, paper documents would be almost nonexistent, and the few exceptions would be scanned and thrown away. In reality, many people and companies keep information on both computers and paper. One look at the front office of a dentist’s office should be enough to illustrate this point. Hundreds or thousands of “charts” are kept, detailing the diagnoses and treatments for patients. For whatever reason, storage of these records in a computer is too laborious or simply not practical. Perhaps humans are still catering to the limited capabilities of computer software.  Many institutions have succeeded in getting rid of paper, but only those whose vital information can be represented in collections of typewritten material. It takes a lot of planning and hard work to create software that can file images and charts in a computer — and more work on behalf of the administrative staff to consistently use such a filing method.

At first, computers were envisioned to be humble, quiet servants. Today, humans are  the servants…. but hope is on the horizon.

Computers tend to resemble whining babies that need their diapers changed — annoying distractions from the work at hand — whether it be virus scans, software that is complex to use, overall slowness, problems needing to be fixed in the internet browsing software, upgrades from Microsoft or Apple, printing problems, etc. Computers are rapidly outdated and require an information technology staff in even the smallest of companies. However, advances in reliability and ease of use are finally coming. Software makers are following the lead of Apple Computer, whose software is well-tested and certified to work correctly with all other applications. Voice recognition is becoming popular (Siri and Google Voice for instance), and new versions of Windows computers have touch screens. New input devices are coming that will allow operation of computers through arm and hand gestures in a 3D space in front of the monitor, much as in the sci-fi movie “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise.

Miracles are coming, and miracles have taken place. There’s no doubt that computers have transformed our lives. But we must eventually ask the burning question, Is work getting done as well as it could be? That is a question you’ll have to answer for yourself.