What effect do technological advancements have on human life?

Most prevalent, deep-and-broad-impact technology around today, bar none, is the Ineternet--Web to be more accurate. As an early HTML coder and user of the Web, "back in the day," when Spry Mosaic was the only game in town, I have had Websites of various flavours ever since '95, and was used to shopping online, long before the WWW became something more than a playground for me and my fellow geeks.

From 1997 till 2003 I had an inspirational site up called, "The WebShepherd." Some time in late 1998 I got an e-mail from a guy in India's hinterland, I mean right in the foothills of the Himalayas, asking me for the coordinates toward which to point his satellite dish, so as to pick up TBN! Keep in mind that India still has laws which make it a crime to preach or otherwise activate for Christianity, a crime punishable by death, should local or regional authorities so choose. TBN, as most large organizations of the time, already had a fairly comprehensive Website. They had a page specifically for satellite coordinates, for any location in the world. I found the correct ones for my e-mail requester, and passed them on to him.

My point? Almost ten years ago, when the Web was still largely used only by gov, edu, people like myself, here was this guy on the other side of the world communicating with me, whom he found through my largely unpromoted Website, back wthn Yahoo and Altavista were pretty much it; here was this guy, a Christian in a land where it can be dangerous to be a Christian, e-mailing someone of whom he had never heard, and whom he would likely never see--at least in this world--to get information.

That is effect. Of course we all know what has happened since.

Pandora would have loved this, and put it right in her box - or vase - classical scholars disagree - which illustrates the problem here. Which technologies? What degree of influence constitutes an "effect" on "human life?" What constitutes human life itself has become an issue. Select a technology. Computers? Internet? Energy, to wit, atomic, fossil fuels, renewable?

issue revision:

---

changing to esperanto's version

---

I'm going in with this one... on esperanto's version. We'll replace it if people complain.

Read this in the atlantic today, a quote from James Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA (i think):

Just as the success of a corporate body in making money need not set the human condition ahead, neither does every scientific advance automatically make our lives more "meaningful."

Why do I quote this? To make myself appear smart. Point is, this is an age-old issue that is perenially ripe for debate. We can make it work. How about something like this:

What effect do technological advancements have on human life?
-They tend to improve it.
-They tend to degrade it.

Basically, we need a way to stake out your basic technophobe/technophile dichotomy without being to extreme, and the debate will flow.

unfortunately, i have to say i'd take a pass on this one.  "worse"  how?  and, "many technologies"  seems far too broad.

what about something like:

are advances in technology always superior to their replacements?

I don't know how to best word this. I'm going to write a post in the open thread about street-sweeper trucks. I'm also thinking about automated-response phone systems, etc.