Technology is the answer, but what was the question?

Whatever we do and wherever we are, we are surrounded by a multiplicity of technologies and the last decades showed an exponential application of ´new technologies´. Who for instance would want to miss our smartphones? It is a bizarre discrepancy: a slum dweller in India does not have access to proper sanitation and drinking water but he has better communication tools than the president of the USA 20 years ago. With one single tool we enjoy almost unlimited communication, direct access to the internet, we can find every spot via GPS, take pictures and make movies with better and better cameras and profit of more and more features like for medical checks or even life saving devices. On the other hand and without suffering from paranoia, the potentials for permanent control of our location, of who we are communicating with, what we write and talk, of our shopping behaviour or of other lifestyle habits, need to be mentioned as well as the fact that our direct social contacts decreased in the decade of the smartphone. So are these only minor ´side effects´ which might be controllable, but as a whole advanced technologies are great and improve our life?