Technology is the staple of any modern age and its applications have consequences deeply rooted in society. In the past ten years the technology of the debit card has allowed tens of thousands of individuals to pay for goods and services effortlessly. It is the ease and the speed with which one can debit a bank account that has removed the attentiveness formerly required toward ones bank account, and many have fallen prey to this trap.

What makes this phenomenon interesting is its link to the American fascination with speed and seamlessness. In the midst of any new paradigm there are bound to be hiccups, and in the case of the debit card the move to internet and paperless banking and tap-and-go payment over the past decade has promulgated the insatiable need for rampant consumption. The debit card is habit forming, and riddled with the denial endemic to any addiction.

As the economy worsens with each passing week, much emphasis has been placed upon consumers' careless use of credit cards. At this time the average American household credit card debt is roughly ten thousand dollars. Though lines of credit are different than the funds in ones bank account, the looming problem is inextricably linked by the habit of paying for daily goods with a plastic card.

Many individuals with rolling credit card debt can only pay the minimum monthly fee because such individuals do not have adequate savings to pay off large sums of the debt.

This problem is further compounded by the perceived need to purchase other technologies. We have become familiar with the black hole of technology consumerism - think of Best Buy - and how the desire to keep personal technologies up-to-date has become a frequent and expensive habit. New flat panel televisions are quickly replacing the old cathode ray tube found in most homes, new game systems, digital cameras, software updates, and growing monopolies such as BluRay have consumers asking questions equivalent to "VHS or Beta."

The Apple Computer cult following is a prime example of the gravitational pull for people to purchase new items and stay current. The most fashionable of products, the promised seamlessness of the Apple regime requires the use of the most current software and often the use of the most current hardware. Compounded with a shallow minded attitude about status and image it becomes easy to swipe your plastic card and walk out satisfied with your new technology. A technology that will be near obsolete in a number of years. Apple has made it so easy to spend while at their stores you often find yourself in a state of euphoria while making the transaction amid the crisp minimalist interior with friendly staff wielding handheld check-outs. If you don't have enough money or a decent credit line, Apple offers its Juniper credit service at the push of a button. Not to be a bully toward Apple, they are merely the best example of a brilliant business model. But it is a business model that is representative of the type of temptations in rampant American consumerism that has burned a hole in our wallets.

Our technologies have advanced faster than our society is ready to adapt. To overcome this shift in spending practice which will be one of the hallmarks of the first half of the twenty-first century we must first get a grasp of the new nature of money and how the term "cash" will fit into our twenty-first century lexicon. As the world markets continue to implode we shall have a better idea of what "having money" means relative to ones income and what the nature of cash, currency, credit, and exchange will be once the ashes are cleared and the dust settles. There will be some technologies in this new age they we will not be able to live without, and those technologies come with a cost.

Of course not everyone is careless with his or her lack of money, but those people are obviously in the minority.