Beware the Seductive Power of Technology

I Like Technology. I’m conceding all the desirable and fun things that computer-based technology has brought into our lives; I’ll no longer combat that conflict. I would not only lose any argument towards the splendid additions era has made to our lives, but I would also be preventing myself. I adore it to flip open a Star Trek “communicator” and speak to almost anyone, every time. I love the very idea of having a communique device out in my again backyard, near the bird feeder, that is speaking with satellite tv for pc in low earth orbit. Wow! And do I ever love my computer-oops, computer systems? As in many computer systems. In fact, my job is strongly tied to generation, and I like to receive a commission. However, this article is a caution, a plea to open our eyes wider than our huge display screen TVs, to step back out of mobile phone variety, to place down our PDAs for a minute, and study what has gotten a keep on us.

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Technology is Seductive

Technology has the electricity to draw us in and motive us to lose an angle approximately what’s going on. Just attempt speaking in your infant (or maybe your spouse or satisfactory friend) the next time a few slick TV programs or commercial is shimmering across the screen, and you will see what has all in their interest. Technology attracts us in. But if we are drawn in, we are also leaving something in the back of. We can be leaving behind loving or growing relationships or the quiet time important to suppose purposefully about our lives, in which we are going, and the way we need to live five years from now. To retain this idea that the era is seductive, permit’s look at the herbal development of how we reply to a new era.

Technology as a Toy

All new generation involves us in the guise of a toy; for that reason, it’s a preliminary seductive pull on us. No matter the age, the brand new era appears like a toy. It is clean, quiet, and flashes little lighting. It makes lovable sounds, and we respond to it from the childlike (or infantile) center of our being. It isn’t always the state-of-the-art 35-year-old commercial enterprise govt responding to the brand new all-cause, rather-evolved technology thing; it’s miles rather the seven-year vintage child inner that is gushing and filled with Christmas morning lust. We might not actually have any way to use it yet, but we played with it. We flip channels, set the quantity on the ninety-six surround sound speakers (yours doesn’t have 96?), take pix of our toes with it, and enthusiastically pursue carpal tunnel troubles as fast as our thumbs and palms can fly over amusing little-colored buttons. It is a toy. But it does pass evolve into our subsequent category, and that makes us experience a touch better about it and allows us to keep away from the truth that we just spent a year of future retirement on a toy.

Technology as a Tool

The toy commonly becomes a device. In our robust wants to justify the acquisition of the toy, we look for things it can do. Ah, it keeps my calendar. Cool! Now I might not need to maintain the song of my $ 29.00-day planner and worry approximately losing it. I want to fear approximately dropping my $495 PDA. But it can additionally take pix. That’s important. It’s also properly that it could erase them because I discover I take a variety of snapshots which can be in reality crap. Now I am not simplest frolicked taking the snapshots; I also get to spend time erasing them.

But the toys regularly develop into very critical gear. I can also continue to use my cellular smartphone toy as I unconsciously blow via pink lighting fixtures and make turns without signaling (I need that spare arm for the mobile). Still, I also understand this toy is a serious safety tool. I don’t want to be broken down on the highway and not have this link to help. The same 50″ flat display wall putting that may be a toy is likewise a tool to be privy to threatening climate and essential present-day events. And the pocketbook laptop that empowers me to look at photos of potential Russian brides allows me to write this text and task funding returns. Toys have the potential of becoming equipment from dogs to working dogs. But there may be a third and riskier level.

Technology as a Tyrant

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Dictionary.Com gives one definition of a tyrant as “a tyrannical or compulsory effect.” Wow! Think cell phone, electronic mail, Skype, compulsive checking of boards, chat rooms, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and all the other present-day flavors of Turkish satisfaction referred to as technology. These matters can be toys (especially harmless except for what they are probably changing). They may be tools or emerge as tyrants. When deeply ingrained into our work or social shape, they exchange from being puppies or paintings puppies and emerge as pit bulls that could bite and clamp down so that it is tough to dislodge them.

I used it to hold up with the needs of my task. Once upon a time, I, without a doubt, had a bit of time that I should price range weekly that became “walk around and get to realize all and sundry higher” time. No greater. Now I am constantly juggling attention amongst appointments, drop-in unannounced site visitors, snail mail, telephone calls with the purple reminders, mobile telephone calls, and e-mail. I can by no means get one stuck up without intrusions from all the others. The first 4 had been slightly conceivable, with cell and e-mail brought; I’m not in control; the pit bull is. So, what took place?

How Did We Get Like This?

Okay. Here is the crux of this text. Technology is on an extraordinary evolutionary price than us people. It reproduces faster than mice and changes species with every era. We had been enticed and stayed enticed through generation due to its seductive dark facet. It beckons to the seven 12 months antique interior and attracts us in. As a tool, the era is embraced and embedded in our lives, reputedly as an accomplice; one called alongside us to assist us.

But, without a knowledge of the evolutionary route of technology, we do now not control its vicinity in our lives. It will become a tyrant that bullies us and pulls us round on its rent in place of the opposite way around. Because of the preliminary seductive nature of a generation, we don’t effortlessly see that it’s going to tend to take us to where we do not need to move and make us pay extra than the first concept we have been willing to pay. So, what do they do?

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Many new generation tools cannot be prevented. However, they can be managed. Think of methods to limit their use and the way to communicate your rules to your use in your colleagues, circle of relatives, and pals. For instance, I check my email once a day and clarify to my colleagues that I am now not sitting at my pc all day waiting for the chime (obviously, they may be).

Timothy Washington
Hardcore internetaholic. Social media nerd. General writer. Freelance travel junkie. Music practitioner. Twitter guru. Alcohol maven. In 2008 I was writing about wooden trains for fun and profit. Earned praised for my work researching fatback in Los Angeles, CA. Spent 2001-2006 lecturing about walnuts in Cuba. Earned praise for analyzing tattoos on Wall Street. Uniquely-equipped for deploying wooden horses in Jacksonville, FL. Spent a year lecturing about tar in Salisbury, MD.