How Much Technology is too Much Technology?
The Internet may be causing us to miss out on too much of life
Technology, like the internet, is everywhere in society, so much so that it seems almost impossible to imagine going a day without it. Waiting in line at the supermarket, idling at a stoplight, at the dinner table, these are all places that one sees other people scrolling the internet on their phones. Yet, not all of these places are appropriate for going on the internet. It is as if people have to fill every spare moment of their lives with content, unable to relax and enjoy the moment or enjoy others. The internet is the perfect forum for this occupation of time. While the internet has given humanity phenomenal and important advances and advantages, if used too much, it threatens to impede on fulfilling parts of our lives. A balance of technology is where we use it to enhance our lives, not to replace our lives. If we rely too heavily on the internet, like many believe we do, we risk losing ourselves. Yet it has not only greatly enhanced human lives, but it also has the potential to make our world a better place. When we use technology correctly, it helps us maintain every aspect of our lives, when we don’t, we neglect important moments in favor of our devices. Balance is needed in order to ensure that there is no area of our life that is being neglected.
Writer Nicholas Carr for Atlantic Magazine published an article called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” in which he warned about the negative effects the Internet has on the human brain and behavior.
In an article published in The New Yorker, “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted”, Malcolm Gladwell addressed the limitations of social media in regards to social activism.
In his Atlantic article “The Hive”, Marshall Poe discussed the abilities and strengths of internet community and collaboration using Wikipedia.
The We Want it Now Society
People want results immediately with no work, and that is the society we live in; instant gratification. The Internet greatly feeds into this issue of instant gratification. People don’t have to work for things because there is an alternative that does the work for them, why make sacrifices when there is a way out. In his article Gladwell mentions how the internet tricks users into believing that they are making sacrifices when he states, “[the Internet]. . . succeeds not by motivating people to make real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make real sacrifice” (Gladwell). The Internet makes things easier, less risky. If one never tries, they cannot fail, so they settle because they don’t want to do the work or make the sacrifice. There was a time when the majority of people couldn’t get through life in society without having some face-to-face contact with other people, they had no opportunity to hide from others. Today, someone can have an entire relationship with another person without ever seeing their face. The Internet allows people to hide away because if you never have to make any real connections with people, you don’t have to fear being hurt. Unfortunately, this limits people to having many weak and insignificant relationships in their lives, but few deep connections with others, and bonding to other human beings is an important part of human lives. Humans have always been group animals, people need each other to survive, and today is no different. The survival is now based less on gathering food and protection from other animals, and more about mental health and well being.
The Internet not only allows people to forgo deep connections with other people, but also making deep connections with themselves. The Internet allows people to feel like they have an identity without requiring them to work to be better or go out and seek different kinds of intelligence. In his article, Carr eloquently states,
“In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas” (Carr).
The Internet allows for a false sense of creative intelligence by having so many original ideas thought up by other people, that we feel creative simply through the act of choosing someone else’s ideas to represent ourselves. Instead of thinking up original thoughts people use quotes from other people to express themselves. Instead of brainstorming and coming up with one’s own art project or recipe, they go on Pinterest and copy others. We substitute countless hours of our days and years out of our lives browsing the Internet. This can be beneficial for certain tasks, but after a while we stop looking up at the clouds or at each other in favor of what is on our screens.
Who are we Without Google?
People can become slaves to their machines, not in the way of Terminator and I, Robot, where there are robot overlords using humans for forced labor. In a more subtle way, where while people still have the freewill to choose, they continue to live as if they do not. Like when losing one’s phone is more emotional than losing one’s dog. Society today has replaced many human to human interactions or work with automation, modeling itself after an idea from Frederick Winslow Taylor, who was mentioned in Nicholas Carr’s article (Carr). This idea written by Taylor is,
“‘In the past man has been first. . . in the future the system must be first’” (Carr).
People are being replaced by machines in the name of a more efficient system. Most companies now have automated phone lines, even in grocery stores there are checkouts where the teller is a computer. The majority of large cargo ships and tankers are entirely automated with a minuscule crew onboard to maintain the machines, but where does it end? Will humans replace everything in their lives with automation, or will there be a point where people stop and think that there are some aspects of life that shouldn’t be automated?
Moderation is Key
That being said, technology isn’t all doom and gloom, when used appropriately, technology greatly enhances people’s lives. With things like social media, the globe is becoming increasingly interconnected, allowing new ideas and information to be spread further than they ever could before. The wonders of the internet are described by Gladwell when he quips, “It’s [the Internet] terrific at the diffusion of innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, seamlessly matching up buyers and sellers, and the logistical functions of the dating world” (Gladwell). Gladwell also goes on to state, “[social medias] are our greatest source of new ideas and information” (Gladwell). Never before has such a vast collection of up to date information been so readily available to the public, as Marshall Poe put it in his article,
“. . . [the Internet] that is where common knowledge will, by convention, be archived and updated and made freely available” (Poe).
With all this information, one can become an expert on almost any subject, or learn to master almost any skill. People are also more connected than in the past;, someone in Canada can begin and maintain a deep relationship with someone else in China through things like instant messenger and Skype. Even something like the medical industry is benefitting. When a person visits a doctor’s office or hospital, a patient medical chart is created for them to hold all of their important medical information. Back in the day of paper charts, things could more easily get lost and if you had to see a different doctor, like a specialist, they wouldn’t have your chart unless your PCP faxed the entire chart over to them. Now with electronic medical charts, any practitioner in the system can be granted access to your chart. Leading to fewer medical errors and misinformation. The Internet not only makes life easier, but it can save lives as well.
Balance, That’s the Secret
With every new innovation comes change, because that technology changes the way people go about a task. While change is wonderful, it can also bring unforeseen consequences. When the invention of writing started to become more widely utilized, Socrates believed that it would cause people to “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful”. He also lamented that people would possess false wisdom when they were infact ignorant (Carr). In his article, Carr goes on to note, “Socrates wasn’t wrong — the new technology did often have the effects he feared — but he was shortsighted. He couldn’t foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur ideas, and expand human knowledge” (Carr). I am not advocating for a complete rejection of technology, but a balance. This isn’t something that must require a massive undertaking, there are little things that we can do in our everyday lives that can help achieve balance. Maybe we read an internet article that intrigues us one day and bury our noses in the dusty pages of a good book the next. We text our loved ones when they are away, then put down the phones when you are together. Instead of staying in to channel surf when you’re bored, go outside, take a walk, soak in the vitamin D. Meet someone at a party, friend them over Facebook and then go out to actually meet them face to face over coffee. We do not have to be controlled by our devices, free will dictates that we can instead control them.
Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic. Jul. 2008. Web. 25 Jun. 2016.
Gladwell, Malcolm. “Small Change.” The New Yorker. Conde Nast, 4 Oct. 2010. Web. 25 June 2016.
Poe, Marshall. “The Hive.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group, Sep. 2006. Web. 26 May. 2016.