Bulgarians are buying computers.

Computers are powerful tools. They can process immense quantities of data and solve incredibly complex equations, reducing the time for answers from lifetimes to minutes. Businesses can be run from a laptop computer, using sophisticated programs. Computer simulations are cost-effective and literally life saving in fields like medicine.

In ecology, computer models can be used to estimate the effects cutting down a forest would have on hydrological cycles. The only costs associated with simulations are time and money. In real systems, the consequences can be acid rain which kills fish and trees.

Computers are now allowing us to live in an amazing hyperworld of the web, where communications propagate like electronic wildfire through the system, and people are brought closer together. This wild place could make our lives come alive with graphics and exchanges.

Businesses and schools are understandably excited. Teachers promote the strategic roles of computing. Salespeople tell everyone that computers save time, increase efficiency, and solve problems. Sometimes they do - so people are pressured into buying and using them. This leads computers to be used unthinkingly for any application. But, as the radio was not very good for comprehensive communication, computers are often not very good for creative construction or nonlinear exploration.

There is no doubt that computers have brought about many good changes, as have the phone and the automobile. But the phone and auto also had undesirable effects - the invasion of privacy, and pollution, for example. What are the hidden costs or undesirable effects of computers? Loss of freedom? Structured education? The computer is becoming a dominant all-purpose tool. But, like any tool, it is not a panacea for the difficulties of modern civilization. In fact, excessive reliance on any tool like the computer may have distinct disadvantages for us.

The use of computers may have long-term psychological effects that should be considered. If we consider machines as "energy slaves," then we each use the equivalent of 10 to 50 slaves per day. The computer is an information slave. We slave owners love this privilege (I do). And the exploitation of inanimate slaves is more easily justified. Perhaps now, the culture of arts and sciences is not possible without machine slaves. But, at some point, slavery corrupts the owners, making them physically or mentally softer.

What is the exchange for summoning these information slaves so easily? The failure to develop intellectual ingenuity? Loss of imagination? Lack of trust in intuition? Let us consider an earlier adaptation that helped humanity. Knives permitted hunting larger game animals, but the long-term anatomical result was partial degeneration of the human jaw. An adapted species is more vulnerable to accidents, since external adaptations, like pacemakers or artificial kidneys, become required for the health and maintenance of civilization. Perhaps writing changed human memory. Perhaps computers will change our thought processes.

Computers allow us to keep track of inventory without memory and to add without effort. But, when they fail, people have more difficulty adding up their grocery bills or keeping track of all the widgets made. Computers successfully augment our abilities, but we must take care that they do not allow the abilities to degenerate. Computers are valuable, but we must not forget what functions they are assisting - computers should not displace the skills themselves. Education should include a core of mathematics, and poetry and narratives should still be memorized, as well as written.

Our lives should include working in the fields and resting under trees. Ultimately, we want to live harmoniously on earth, with the wealth of other living beings. Computers can be an important part of our lives, but not necessarily a crucial one.