The world has seen countless number of eras which have been recorded in the history of mankind. We currently live in a world that has been termed as the era of technology. Technology in lay man’s terms is defined as a machine that helps reduce the work load for human beings. Technology like any other substance has both its pros and cons. During a visit to Mangalore, I came across two people who have relatively simple life but at the same time have been affected by technology in different ways.

Mr. Ritesh Kumar a 34 year old married man with a 6 year old daughter. He is the manager of a retail store that sells electronic appliances; which has up to 80 employees.He has been working in this field for around 11 years. He has worked for a couple of electronic stores. He says that during his beginning years, most of the work done was manually. Now with the click of a button, information is passed with the usage of applications like WhatsApp. He also spoke of an upcoming project where, the company is going to launch a delivery tracking system to optimize the satisfaction of the customer.

When the topic of the online market was brought into picture, he replied saying that the expansion of online shopping does not really make a difference in the number of customers. He believes that online shopping is purely based on the product only but lacks in the service and aesthetic factors. For instance if one goes to a store the customer gets to see the product whereas, when it comes to online shop the customer has to buy the product by only taking the image of the product into consideration. He further says that online shopping has lesser guarantee of genuineness than compared to an electronic store. On daily basis, he says that he gets 1300 walk-in customers and during festivals it goes up to 5000 – 8000 walk-in customers.

When we spoke about the amount of time he has to spend with his family, he laughed and answered saying that in the retail business it is difficult to spend time with family. He gets to spend comparatively more time with family due to the decrease in the work load. Back then there was more labor and less wages but now, there is comparatively less labor, standard procedures and more wages.

In the same neighborhood, I found another man who was a manager of a retail store but with a different outlook on the impact of technology in the same industry.

Mr. Amish Shetty is a 31 year old married man. He is the manager of an ethnic clothing store with 2 employees. He agrees too many of the benefits of technology like outward and inward stock, online shopping etc. The biggest trend nowadays is online shopping. Websites like Amazon, Flipkart, Jabbong have offers be it in discounts or trial periods or scheduled delivery timings, which has led to a shift in the number of consumers from clothing stores to online websites. But due to the advent of online shopping, the sales have definitely increased but the service has been on the decline. The number of walk-in customers have reduced to 30 – 35 customers in a day. During festive occasions it might go up to 50 odd walk – in customers. He also agrees to the fact that the work load has reduced but the stress level has increased drastically, especially in a field like retail sales which hasn’t exactly boomed in the country. Regardless of this he has no choice but to continue using technology because the system has grown accustomed to it.

Technology like I said before is both a boon and a bane. Due to this constant exposure to various applications of technology, individuals are becoming more dependent on it.
Unfortunately the positive effects overshadow the negative effects and most individuals are unaware of this phenomenon