On iPhones and Mentos

Today I mistook E4 for F4 and the Talmage vending machine cranked out fruity Mentos instead of powered donuts; as a vending machine usability tester, I suggest moving the letters E's and F's to distant rows. My Mentos mishap brings me to grips with the irreversible nature of vending machine transactions (and technology in general). Technology has irreversible consequences. Take Apple's App Store for example: developers can make bank if their apps go viral. Are there negative consequences? Obviously it threatens desktop apps, but think bigger. iPhone apps envelop society's trend toward an all-at-once lifestyle --  a life where more and more is immediately available at our fingertips. Society demands time saving devices for our fast-paced world. But the time-saving iPhone can easily devour our free time with recreational games. This Catch-22 makes the Neil Postman inside me shout out that new technology bring both positive and negative consequences.