October 25, 2007
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Featured Question #78: Technology and Isolation
Do you think technology breeds isolation?
As I sit here with a horrible head cold posting words which might otherwise go unsaid, I would have to say that, no, technology does quite the opposite. From the wheel, fire, and books to automobiles, home appliances, phones, and the internet, technology tends to centralize us, not separate us. From the very first innovation, technology has allowed us to go forward and form tribes from families and nations from tribes. Technology allows us to travel to far off places to visit friends or simply learn about a new cultures. It allows us to communicate over large distances, whether for our own entertainment or to receive advance information about impending bad weather or other troubles. Even the innovations of refrigerators and ovens have served to bring people together in a place where they know food can be found. Even the smallest innovation of our cavemen forbearers, fire, served to bring us together to share rather than remain apart to eat our meals alone.
Technology is the cement that holds us together. Without it, we would live day to day, never knowing what tomorrow might bring or where our next meal might come from. Technology provides order to an otherwise chaotic existence. In many ways, technology gives us more time to concentrate on improving ourselves. Though it’s true that many people use this extra time for entertainment instead, the fact still remains that our forbearers had little time to spend outside of their day to day chores. And their forbearers had a completely hand to mouth life style.
So we are all better off with technology than without, despite the irresponsible use of the technology to fight wars and create disease. (Even that brings us together, though not in a good way…) Technology may not bring us together bodily, but a meeting of the minds is just as important, if not more so.
And as it now seems that I am losing my train of thought, I’ll end my post here.
I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!
Comments (2)
It’s a double-edged sword, as most things. Technology does bring us together, but I think some people fear it brings us together too easily or superficially. I’m more in your camp, though.
Funny story – when my sister was two or three, still in a car seat, we fed the sleeping girl a french fry. She was absolutely asleep when we waved it under her nose and she opened her mouth, chewed, and swallowed it. She was the cutest toddler ever. Unfortunately, we have the same penchant for food
Dear Candace,
I could write a nice long essay declaring the opposite reaction. In the “old days” before automobiles allowed people to “get out of town” quickly and easily, more people were perhaps less mobile, but communities were closer. Before records and television offered entertainment for folks, they used to gather around the piano and sing or otherwise entertain themselves, building closeness of family and community.
The idea that we’re all “connected” (which is the lynchpin of my own belief system) seems to be illustrated by the internet, where disparate types who might never meet in life (like you and me right here on your blog) can communicate and interact with each other. It “seems” as if we’re ” closer” but actually we’re all apart sitting in front of computers.
True, “entertainment” is far easier to access nowadays, with ipods and cell phones which double as cameas and televisions. In the past, it took two whole days to do the wash. However, I sometimes wonder if all the “entertainment” we have nowadays is positive or negative in the long run.
Interesting thoughts.
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool