Once upon a time, the wheelbarrow was the latest technology. A Chinese politician claims to have invented it, so I’m guessing someone else did and he took credit. Whoever invented it, and it could have happened in more than one place, I can just hear the naysayers.

“Kids these days will not understand real work!”

“This generation will forget how to use their arms!”

Or when the printing press was invented –

“People spend too much time getting artificial and unverifiable information from books.”

“All those fictional stories are keeping kids from developing their own creativity or getting enough exercise.”

There is a tendency in each generation to define technology narrowly as that which has recently been invented. People often complain loudly about the supposed negative impact of new technology. However, the definition of technology is

the application of (scientific) knowledge for practical purposes

Some creative person comes up with another way to harness the features of the world around us in ways that enhance productivity. This leaves us freer to spend less energy struggling with some things. Sometimes it makes fun more practical and other times it makes work more practical. And sometimes fun and work overlap.

Sometimes people view the latest technology like the TSA views forks. The potential bad uses loom so largely in their minds that they forget that forks are quite useful and that most people use them to great advantage. There are many foods that are eaten much more efficiently and with less frustration with a fork.

A fork was once the newest technology. I’m pretty sure someone said it would *make* people fat because they could eat too quickly. Those who grew up just using knives bemoaned the life lessons that eating with a knife taught them, all the while showing off their lip scars…

True, some people probably used forks poorly. Some people might have paid too much for forks. Did some people spend too much time admiring their forks? Maybe if you had never had a fork, you would too!

Those with forks were probably alternately accused of having an unfair advantage because they could eat faster or of abandoning the natural ways of their ancestors. They were probably warned that forks would make their lives more stressful because they would have more time available to make more decisions. There were probably even those who claimed that eating with individual forks was a sign of feeling superior.

Then there were bicycles. S