Jan 6, 2016 3 min read

Cars without steering wheels that drive themselves.

Robots that will mow your lawn.

An umbrella that will text you if you absentmindedly leave it behind.

These are some of the technological innovations just over the horizon.

That we have benefitted enormously from the rapid advances in technology cannot be denied. For the young, especially, life without cellphones, ATMs and the Internet is difficult to imagine. The size of computers has shrunk dramatically, even as their power has exploded, and the effect has been the elimination of so many inconveniences we had once assumed to be unavoidable.

But now, it seems, having produced so many convenient products, devices are being proposed for problems that do not really exist. Take, for instance, the smart refrigerator.

It’s now possible to control the temperature in the freezer and refrigerator compartments remotely by smart phone from anywhere on the planet. Amazing, but why would anyone want to do this?

Wait, there’s more!

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Samsung is showing its new “Family Hub” refrigerator, which is equipped with a 21.5-inch monitor and cameras inside so that you can check what’s in the fridge without opening the door. Or you can look at what’s in there on your smart phone from across the room or from work. Do you need to stop for a carton of milk on your way home? Just look on your phone, although the smart fridge can’t tell you how much milk is in the carton already in there.

The Family Hub will let you know when you need to buy certain foods, and you can view recipes from the web on the screen.

Are you still using magnets to stick notes and family photos to your refrigerator, Grandma? Get with it. Now the family can scroll through 100,000 snapshots on the screen.

We may have reached a point at which nearly everything is technologically possible, but not everything is technologically meaningful, practical or relevant.

This could also be the time when the pendulum of technology begins to swing back, and there is some evidence of this in social trends. On the same page in yesterday’s Observer-Reporter, an article about the Las Vegas technology show appeared directly over another article about the new popularity of planners – those low-tech appointment calendars that people are now customizing with stickers, colored pencils and materials used in scrapbooking, another growing hobby.

E-books, despite all the predictions, have not eliminated books printed on paper, nor will they anytime soon.

And now we are learning of another recent craze that is the antipathy of high-tech lifestyle: the adult coloring book. The drawings and designs in these books so popular with everyone from teenagers through the elderly may be more complicated than children’s coloring books, but they require no directions, no technical savvy. The activity is said to relieve stress by offering a departure from the world of constant electronic connection.

Of course, you do not need a coloring book to disconnect from this increasingly connected society. Take out the ear buds, turn off the cellphone and go for a walk.