Where is Innovation taking us?

In the past couple of decades, technology has revolutionized our lives. Along with technological advances, innovation has probably been overdone. Its effects haven’t gone down too well with people. So, where is this ‘over-innovation’ taking us? To answer this question, I would like to quote few articles, which I have read in past several days.

iPhone defined what a smart phone is. When it was introduced people were awestruck with its touch-screen, sleek looks and variety of apps it provided with. Then came the various flavors of iPhone with more and more improvements. As of 2010, it also made video calling possible. Awesome! In this process of innovation, what was forgotten is that the main (NOT the sole) purpose of a phone is to make and take calls. Oh yes, smart people realized this before I did and recently a new phone called “anti-iPhone” was launched. What are its features? One can make and take a call, that’s it. It comes with a regular diary and pen to note down phone numbers instead of a phonebook feature. My parent’s generation had only such phones. Wow!

Once upon a time, in organizations there used to be a role available called the telephone operator. With the automated voice responses becoming popular, the next generation will probably not know that such a role existed. Recently, cognitive-psychologists understood that if a human answers a call instead of digitally recorded voice, the customer satisfaction goes up. No wonder organizations are switching back to the traditional telephone operators, to give a boost to their business. In US many companies have already started giving ads about how ‘true-humans’ answer our calls instead of recorded voices.

So, the trend is clear… It is invention, innovation, over-innovation followed by switching back to the good old idea. Did I get it right?