Technology Resources

Superheroes. Let's begin with the idea of special powers that make one capable of transcending regular, human limits to accomplish tasks that you want to complete. If you could be any superhero, who would you be?

©iStockphoto.com/PeskyMonkey

If I could be any superhero, I would be The Flash because he can act, react, and think at superhuman speeds—that is, speeds that ordinary humans cannot—but can also live with ordinary humans without being separated from civilization or left behind. 


Whereas humans need calculators, computer software, or teams of people to displace the time it would take one person’s mental and physical efforts to find answers and communicate them, The Flash does not. He can think at high speeds and, thus, perform mental procedures (e.g. calculating and weighing business costs and benefits or thinking about how to communicate something to someone) with relative ease as compared to ordinary humans. Whereas humans use technology to save time and skip mental or physical work, The Flash does not. 

However, being able to slow down and take one’s time is vital to enjoying oneself and relating to other humans. If one was stuck thinking and acting at the speeds that The Flash can think or act at, then one would sacrifice one’s ability to relate to humans, which is the very fabric necessary for business, family, friendship, or any human relationship. We can imagine The Flash trying to dance with a lady at super speeds; it just would not work out for him if he was stuck in super speed mode. Luckily, The Flash is not stuck in superhuman speed. He can enjoy the best of both worlds, the human and the superhuman.

Check out the profile for The Flash at the DC Comics website: The Flash. On July 12, 2012, it read:

"High-speed Internet, 4G wireless, the latest operating system for the industry's most souped-up laptop... and it's all still a snail's pace to The Flash."

The Flash can travel faster than the information you access through your applications on your operating system and the data traveling to and from your device (computer, tablet, or phone) through your Internet connection or connection to a 4G wireless network. We can imagine The Flash outpacing wireless networks...

This video is from the T-Mobile Youtube Channel.

Check out Verizon 4G, Sprint 4G, and AT&T 4G. 

My overall point in discussing The Flash or superheros in general is not that we should try to emulate superheroes or measure how much faster a DC comics superhero is than your 4G network. My point is that the human application of technology resources can be like superhuman powers that superheroes use. Technology resources can be applied or used to do things that we ordinarily cannot do by virtue of our own abilities alone. 

It’s no news flash: We are human. I am not the Flash. Neither are you. We live as people with different strengths and weaknesses, but we all have limits to our abilities--mental and physical--that restrict what we can accomplish. We can do much of what the Flash can do, but not at the same speed.


Applying technology resources to the tasks we want to do can help us get these tasks completed--completed much faster than without applying them! Think about it. Let's say you want to calculate how much tip to leave your waiter or waitress. When you use a calculator program or calculation function in a program on your device, you can calculate the amount in a minute, perhaps less. You don't need any secrets of doing math in your head or pen and paper. The application of computer software can displace the time it would take one person’s mental and physical efforts to find answers. This is because the application of the software displaces the mental and physical efforts you would otherwise do. So can other applying technology resources!


Human application is a relationship between one's efforts to use one's abilities and something else used within a process to achieve some result by a deadline or throughout some duration. Applying technology resources can help us do more things during shorter periods of time, but application is not merely using technology for entertainment. Entertainment is important, especially for engaging people. However, entertainment alone guarantees neither results and processes outside of being entertained nor sustainable learning   and capacity building. Human application involves more, which I will discuss in another blog post.


To conclude this discussion, consider again The Flash. Though we should not emulate The Flash and try moving or thinking at speeds faster than the transfer of data across 4G networks, we can do four important things. First, we can integrate 4G networks and their benefits into our lives. Second, we can try moving, thinking and living at speeds appropriate for our abilities (e.g. typing a blog entry in an hour), our relationships (e.g. the instructor's relationships with his or her students), and our processes and efforts to get results. Third, we can try getting better at doing these things with practice, by building awareness of our abilities, and by developing additional abilities. Lastly, we can apply technology resources to help us accomplish things that we ordinarily would not be able to do by virtue of our mental and physical abilities alone. 


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Author's Note: I enjoyed writing this first post and I hope you all did as well. Keep reading, and be sure to check out my next post about human application.