Tag: evolution of technology

How Technology is Revolutionizing the Way We Sleep?

Getting a good night’s sleep is crucial to our overall health and well-being. With technological advancements in the bedding industry, pillows have evolved from being just a cushion for our heads to a personalized sleep accessory. Today, we have smart pillows that are ergonomically designed to deliver the best comfort for its user. 

Smart Pillows

Smart pillows are the latest innovation in the bedding industry. These pillows are designed to provide personalized sleep data to the user. They are equipped with sensors that can track your sleep patterns, snoring, and even detect when you toss and turn in bed. The sensors send the data to a companion app, which analyzes it and gives you insights into your sleep quality.

How Smart Pillows Work?

Smart pillows use sensors such as accelerometers, microphones, and temperature sensors to monitor your sleep patterns. 

The sensors send the data to a companion app via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, where it’s analyzed to provide insights into your sleep quality. Some smart pillows also have built-in speakers that can play music or white noise to help you fall asleep.

Memory Foam Pillows

Memory foam pillows are designed to contour to the shape of your head and neck, providing support and comfort. They are made from viscoelastic polyurethane foam, which responds to heat and pressure. When you lie on the pillow, it molds to the shape of your head and neck, providing a customized fit.

How Memory Foam Pillows Work?

Memory foam pillows are made from viscoelastic polyurethane foam, which is designed to respond to heat and pressure. When you lie on the pillow, your body heat softens the foam, causing it to mold to the shape of your head and neck. As you move, the foam slowly returns to its original shape.

Cooling Pillows

Cooling pillows are designed to provide a cool sleeping surface, especially during hot summer nights. They use materials such as gel or phase-change materials to disperse heat away from the body, providing a comfortable sleeping experience.

How Cooling Pillows Work?

Cooling pillows use materials such as gel or phase-change materials to disperse heat away from the body. Gel-infused pillows use a gel layer on top of the memory foam to provide a cool sleeping surface. Phase-change materials absorb heat when you’re too warm and release it when you’re too cold, providing a comfortable sleeping temperature.

How Technology Is Changing How We Value Money

 

While online shopping, online banking, mobile payments, and automatic deposits have given us more control over our finances, technology may also be altering our perspectives on and values of monetary wealth.
There is mounting evidence that technological advancements have an impact on financial decision-making, which, when combined with established mental models regarding money and common behavioral biases, can have serious negative consequences.
Angie O’Leary, head of RBC Wealth Management-U.S.says that these biases, combined with emotion, can cause investors to make poor financial decisions. She argues that people’s social media connections can lead them to act irrationally, seek out excessive amounts of instant gratification, and place too much stock in false information.
Technology, however, can also be a helpful ally. O’Leary argues that mobile apps can help people overcome biases in their thinking about money, such as an irrational fear of losing money or an over-reliance on anecdotal evidence.
In the 1970s, behavioral finance was pioneered by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who discovered that investors often avoid uncertainty and make decisions based on partial information or irrational thinking.
People’s perspectives on money and the habits that develop from those perspectives, like budgeting and resisting the urge to shop on impulse, often emerge in early life. People’s perspectives on money are shaped not only by personal experiences but also by the lessons they learn in formal and informal settings, such as school and social media.
According to O’Leary, the first step toward better financial decisions is to remove emotion from the equation. The best way to have it done is to make a financial plan that details the investor’s short- and long-term budget, savings, and spending goals, as well as accounts for financial risks and upcoming life events.

An economic impact of technology that is negative

Because of the prevalence of social media in modern life, many individuals now have access to a wider circle of influential peers than ever before. I mean, do they have a positive or negative effect?
According to Alan Wolberg, a wealth planner at City National Bank, technology may be influencing people to make poor choices when it comes to their finances.
Financial choices are being negatively impacted by technology in a number of ways, including:
According to Wolberg, “social media tribalism” occurs when users seek out and share only information that confirms their preexisting beliefs. Therefore, this has an impact on how they handle their money.
Getting stock advice from online sources like social media or blogs O’Leary warns that this type of research can yield inaccurate results and cause investors to make poor decisions.
O’Leary speculates that the convenience of online shopping (free shipping and free returns) and AI-based systems that suggest other products “you might like” could encourage more people to make impulsive purchases.

The role of technology in monetary valuation

There are benefits and drawbacks to the growing popularity of electronic payment methods. Wolberg and O’Leary, for one, believe that this transformation is altering people’s perceptions of monetary value. People are less likely to track their spending and savings as they get further away from their money.

Even O’Leary, who has researched the effects of a cashless, technological society, has reservations.
The danger, she warns, is in determining how much something costs if “transactions are just a flash on your smart phone” and “we’re not handing over cash in exchange.” “It’s getting worse quickly.”
According to a survey done by GoBankingRates, more than three-quarters of Americans have less than $1,000 saved, and over half have nothing saved at all.
Rather than becoming better savers, “people are getting better at spending through technology,” according to Wolberg.

Investments that are influenced favorably by technological advancements

Mobile payment apps like Zelle and Venmo have simplified and sped up financial interactions.
Investment management has been made much easier by technological advancements in the following ways:
People’s procrastination about saving for the future and their inertia regarding decisions have been mitigated thanks to automatic payroll enrollment in 401(k) retirement accounts. As a matter of fact, it has significantly boosted 401(k) enrollment.
There are numerous digital resources for budgeting, expense monitoring, and savings planning. In particular, budgeting apps may assist users in overcoming the “overconfidence” bias, which occurs when people rely too heavily on easily accessible information, such as the historical performance of stocks, and ignore more nuanced or complex information.
Some forms of technology even attempt to alter user behavior. StickK, created by Yale professors, is a savings app in which users set goals and face pressure if they fall short, such as paying $5 to a friend or charity if they fail to save that amount. The goal of the app is to counteract the so-called “loss aversion” bias, which leads people to act irrationally because they experience the loss more keenly than they do the gain of a comparable amount. O’Leary argues that it is possible to value avoiding the loss of $100 more than gaining $100 through investment.

Pros and cons of technology

Over the last two decades, technology has evolved, and gadgets and the Internet are the main agents responsible for this technological development.

This evolution of technology has expanded in all areas of activity, from medicine to production lines, including education, sports, psychology.

Advantages

The main advantage is the quick, easy and so useful access to information.

The Internet is a huge universal library, the largest there can be and where we can find articles, books, publications, magazines, textbooks, encyclopedias or various treatises. Users find here quick and easy answers to almost any topic, multiple information to document, digital books, everything in the shortest time and just by one click of navigation.

A second advantage is provided by social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and applications such as Snapchat, which gives us the opportunity to share photos, to get in touch with people from any corner of the world, to get closer to worlds removed and always be up to date with new trends in all areas.

Disadvantages

A first disadvantage would be that caused by the state of immobility caused by the dependence on games, series or social networks: there are young people, but also adults who spend most of their daily time, around 9 hours/day with games.

Another disadvantage is the long-term exposure to radiation emissions from the screens of electronic devices, which causes serious disorders and health problems. Sight is most affected by prolonged exposure to the screen of electronic devices. Also, the quality of sleep suffers when we use the mobile phone before falling asleep due to the emanations of blue rays, and back pain or spinal deformity are the result of an incorrect and prolonged position adopted on the chair in the office.

The disadvantages also come from the equipment used, which, despite the high degree of performance offered by the latest technological achievements, can be totally inoperative in case of non-existence, interruption or poor connection to a network or when the Internet does not work.

If technology could be used only for beneficial and not destructive purposes for mankind, the evolution of human intelligence would be auspicious. Technological development has equal advantages, through the huge contributions from all fields of activity, as well as disadvantages, in that simple, human joys can be eliminated.