Industrial or Digital?

On the left you have a rice cooker given to us by a friend in 1972 and still working. On the right you have a new I Phone 6S that we just received yesterday by UPS. The Rice cooker is a symbol of the industrial revolution when things were made to last. It has one basic function it does well, cook rice. On the right you have the I Phone a much more sophisticated and technological object that can do many things, receiving email, giving driving directions, being a speed gun or hearing aid among the many things it can do. The I Phone will last a few years until a more sophisticated phone is on the market which can, believe it or not, do more things.

We have from the Industrial age of the rice cooker to the digital age of the I Phone. With the rice cooker we can cook rice anytime we want and it comes out right. With the I Phone we are in constant communication with the world for news, sports or personal communications. We can even purchase a rice cooker online with the phone and track its delivery with same phone. The rice cooker provides rice in about 20 minutes while the I Phone puts us in instant communication anywhere in the world. The rice cooker is steady and the I Phone is instant.

With the industrial revolution workers were replaced with machines. In the digital revolution workers are replaced with computers. In our supermarkets check outs lines the option is given to check out with digital devices out. When we called for information in the industrial age we talked to a person. Now we are likely to talk to a digital computer that recognized voiced words. Politicians and fund raisers used to call for support now computers do the calling. Books, films, radios, newspapers and magazines are now digitized. We can play a game or solve a puzzle without leaving our digital device. Our digital devices fit in a pocket while industrial items like rice cookers need to be carried in a box.

It is said that the average person in the USA spends around eight hours or more per day in front of a screen, TV, computer, phone or tablet. We have access to a world of recipes on our digital devices but still need a rice cooker or pot to cook rice.

The other day using the rice cooker and some leftovers I cooked a delicious lamb and rice dinner. Cooking this meal was creative. My wife pulls out her phone, types in the ingredients she wants to use and instantly has access to all kind of receips. Both types of dinner can be delicious, one by freelancing food in the mind and the other by taking advance of digitized recipes. With digital devices the speed of information is near instant. With industrial devices like the rice cooker the mind is free to create something while the machines does its thing. The industrial world is giving way to the digital world.

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