The internet allows people all around the world to connect with each other. As a frequent user of the internet, I connect with people around the world daily. The first day I set this blog up, somebody from Germany viewed it. I have a twitter account, and talk to people from England and Brazil and other countries every day. Facebook allows me to interact with my family in Ireland and my friends in Germany and Japan. The world is more connected now than it ever has been in the past.
Sometimes things like that just hit me all of a sudden. They make me look at the world and how technologically advanced we are. They make me wonder whether our advancement is a good thing. The argument can go either way. Things were both simpler and harder in the past (what a general statement - I know). People cared so much more about hospitality and neighborliness, but didn't have the medical skills needed to save lives. They had many more personal, physical interactions but important information couldn't travel as quickly as it needed to. Nowadays, we rely so much on our technology. We constantly have our eyes on screens and our heads elsewhere. Technology seems to be moving faster than people's intelligence. We have the resources to do so many things, but people as a whole don't have the brainpower to apply what we have to the world. Technology would be so much better if people used it a little more sparingly. How many times are you talking to someone, just to have them start texting someone else? Technological interactions can make things so impersonal, causing people to feel neglected and unloved. However, they can be so useful at the same time. Connecting with people around the world is a wonderful feeling. It's great to know that people in England, Cambodia, and Switzerland feel the same as you.
So is technology good or bad? It's both. It's neither. Just like everything, it has it's perks and in cons. Every person needs to look at how they use their technology and analyze how they can make their lives better by altering their uses. Personally, I use my technology much better than I did in the past. I go on the internet less, text less, watch television less - while still using all of it when I need it. Yes, I need to make some changes, but overall, I'm doing a good job. I certainly with this could be said about more people.
Well, I guess that how I have come to look at it is similar to what you are saying. The concept of psychic entropy comes to mind. If your mind becomes fragmented by multitudinous stimuli, electronic or not, one of the only solutions is to unplug, at least until someone creates a virtual reality simulation called "Calm Walk in the Evening." The quality of staying connected often depends upon the quality of the interactions. If the parties babble about minutiae (mindless blathering, like gossip), then I think it is just mental noise (though it is not for me to judge), but if you are building solid and meaningful relationships with energizing discussions and passionate debates, I think this can be mentally and spiritually stimulating. It comes back to one of my favorite analogies: how everything is like a hammer. The hammer can help build me a home, or it can be used to crack skulls. Don't blame the hammer!
ReplyDeleteI think this essay is fascinating. You have chosen a profoundly important topic which has been discussed and explored for decades, but which is even more crucial now, as the adoption and use of social networking and other highly personal types of technology accelerate. As a user, practitioner, and creator of technological solutions, and especially as an engineer with a philosophical bent, this has been a topic of great interest to me over the years. You have done a great job of hitting the key points from a user's perspective. Nuclear technology leads to both bombs and isotopic cancer treatments. TV leads to a great leveling of globally shared experience, which helps many but arguably hinders others. Information technology and telecommunications advances lead to being more connected, speeding up life, less filtering, etc. And there are countless other examples of the potentially good and bad aspects. My thought is that technology is not static, but rather is a complex progression. Cellphones a few years ago were phones. Then text messaging was added. Now, you can carry your Email, Facebook, and Twitter around with you, constantly involved and being (if you allow it) available and subject to interruption & distraction. The pace of this change is significantly increasing still. One of the things technologists do is develop new capabilities as fast as they can, in order to help people, make money, and keep ahead of the competition. We also, at least some of us some of the time, try to look ahead a few years and identify problems that are likely to arise, and then solve them, in order to be better prepared. But it's a constant "battle" in a sense. Some problems aren't apparent until they get here, or there's no feasible solution yet. But the more people understand, take control of their own lives with respect to technology, and discuss these issues, the better off we all are. Excellent work.
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