By Rainer Sousa
Today, the telephone and other paraphernalia offer more and more practicality and convenience for those who want to make the world equal with a simple touch. While the touchscreen wave doesn't take over, we still facilitate a fair amount of tasks that rely on the simple push of a button. The presence of this element became so daily that we came to create the legend of the “red button”, responsible for an unimaginable misfortune.
According to the notes of an American designer, between cell phones, computers, iPods and controls, we reach an average of 125 clicks per day. Historically, the first use of buttons was performed by the Central Electric Company of Chicago, an electric power supply company that developed a light switch with two buttons:a white one with the “on” function and a black one responsible for “off”.
However, before the button showed what it came to, some other technological tools such as the trigger, the piano, the telegraphs and the cameras were already rehearsing our coming dependence on this tiny component. In the last decades of the 19th century, some manual tasks, such as ringing a bell or turning a crank, began to lose ground. In most cases, the “magic little button” triggered an automated electrical system.
However, all this ease wouldn't come at a cost. The increased use of computers and their keyboards, for example, would be responsible for some serious muscle injuries. In addition, those who have become more aficionados of this technological wave of buttons, restrict the ability to plan and execute simple manual tasks. In a recent survey, a California school found in 2001 that 30% could not handle a dial phone.
The height of this custom of using buttons in daily life was experienced in the 1950s. At the time, the simple touch of the button had the power to sacralize a clear impression of comfort and modernity. . In that decade, long before the Formula I picks, car companies like Chrysler and Ford launched push-button-shifting car models. The invention did not catch on, as the devices were in some cases confused with the steering wheel horn.
In our lives, buttons have a very peculiar presence and have already been the subject of an instigating criticism in the movie “Click”, created in 2006. Through this interesting comedy, we can see how technology and all the routine that runs around it, end up affecting the scope of our personal relationships. Indeed, some customs and practices cannot be indiscriminately replaced by button functionality.