In the 1940s the first computers were created with the capability of calculating 5 operations in a single second.  Fast forward 70 years and computers can now calculate over a trillion operations in the same unit of time.  This may seem like a long time ago to those of us raised in the new millennium, but when you take a moment to absorb the sheer expanse of the technological revolution in the past few decades, only one word comes to mind: Phenomenon.

In less than a life span, computers have evolved from taking up the space of an entire building, to fitting nicely into our smallest pockets.  The level of development for this continuously expanding technology, and the speed at which it is occurring is revolutionizing the world we live in from generation to the next.   We now communicate and operate using methods and technologies my parents couldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams when they were my age.

Of course, as expected, these waves of massive change have sparked an ongoing debate on what the nature of the long term ramifications of these new technologies will be.  Many critics argue that the emergence of social media heightens narcissistic tendencies in our developing youth, and worry that constant access to news stories and world events is a causing a desensitization to the occurrences around us.  However, I’m not convinced that these are the true issues that will arise from the technological boom.

Computational devices have been following a growth pattern in the same exponential trajectory since the late 1800s, remaining unaffected by any economic boom or bust in its history, including the Great Depression.  In fact, the rate of growth has been so constant, that engineers like Ray Kurzweil have been able to make wildly accurate predictions about future technologies long before they occurred, simply by considering the exponential trajectory.

Information technology is going to continue to develop and improve at this extremely rapid rate; there’s nothing we can really do about that.  Therein lies the true concern.

As human beings, we struggle to truly comprehend, and respond to this rate of exponential growth, and as a result, our societal structure and our laws are not capable of advancing at the same rate.  While it’s incredible that modern technology is responsible for the success of the Human Genome Project, which might, one day, eradicate the genes responsible for a predisposition to cancer; it begs the question of whether or not our health care system will adapt quickly enough to make this treatment accessible to the public.  Will this technology, with the potential of breeding a superior human that immune to the diseases that kill so many,  be afforded only by a privileged few? Gene therapy and DNA software could easily become a destructive contributor to the already troubling wage gap between the top 1% and the rest of the world.  If you ask me, this is far more concerning than the number of selfies that are posted in a day.  What do you think?