The parody song “There’s an App for that” featured on Sesame Street at the end of last year doesn’t quite describe the full extent of all the possible uses we can get out of technology. Just recently scientists at the University of Iowa found a therapeutic use to tablets.
Although the song has been subject to several conversations, and even used in the benefit of discrediting technology at large, there are more benefits than we could possibly imagine. According to the University professors, they have been using the tablets as a communication device with children having interaction problems. On the article, there’s an example about a boy who barely speaks to his own family for an unknown reason. However, they use the tablet as a means for the child to express himself through a drawing app.
It’s not bizarre to find these miraculous “cures” thanks to technology, even if it seems outrageous for certain individuals. It’s important to keep in mind that they are used as important tools to deliver results. However, just because I describe this article as “iPad just Graduated as a Therapist” doesn’t mean that the iPad or any other technological for that matter can replace the understanding and analyzing skills of a human being. After all, it is the University’s professors in this case who are conducting the boy’s therapeutic treatment.
The same thing happens with Robotic Surgery. Yes people, in this day and age robots are used to operate on patients. Don’t be frightened though, the robot doesn’t do everything on its own, it doesn’t even “think” on its own. It is only a medium for surgeons to have more accurate movements at the operating table, but the robot is guided 100% by the human surgeon himself.
Although some may think we are bound to be the product of an Isaac Asimov novel, technology has been the sole tool for so much progress not only in health but in so many other aspects; even ideological advancements and evolution have been possible because technology. How many more things will we be able to do in the near/far future?