Constantly upgrading technology downgrades us.
Technology is dehumanising us, infantilising and
stripping our responsibility. It is automatising and brutalising us. None of
this is news. However, technology isn’t even doing the things we think it can
do and in over-relying on the magic of IT we are handing our lives to an entity
lacking empathy, emotional intelligence, and the things that help to keep the
unstable human animal in check.
I look up from my computer out of the window at the
rain. On every weather forecast I’m looking at for Edinburgh it says it is very
unlikely to rain today. It says it is not raining NOW. It is. I can see it.
And the thing is we know. In offices round the
country computer records are mostly ‘backed up’ with paper copies. Doubling not
halving the office work.
Technology isn’t killing us in an iRobot kind of way. It is subtly and
cumulatively taking our humanity and our abilities.
The problem is that technology encourages us not to
use our senses or even our common sense.
Although I am a self proclaimed Luddite (see blog 53
I suffer from PANTS) it’s not a
visceral thing. I do not hate technology. I grew up without it mostly and me
and it are – on the whole - quite happy with minimal contact.
I got the basics of turning on a computer years ago
when married to an IT fan. Learning to e-mail was a boon and tis still a
favoured form of communication. As face book obliterated cyberspace I found my
in-boxes increasingly sparsely populated with mail from randoms which was a positive.
But from medicine to offices to safety, technology
is deskilling the majority and giving us a false sense of security and power.
It is also driving us crazy. It also means that greedy nutters who have never
made anything or contributed to society in their lives can wreck the global
economy by pressing buttons.
Governments around the world are gagging, slavering
for more and more technology to spy on other countries and their own citizens.
Yet nowhere do we see a government with the basic infrastructure or organisational
skills to so much as keep the pavements free of dog crap let alone make other good
use of any such information. (blog 42 I’m
Spartacus)
In the rich west we can now buy our own heart
monitors, gizmos to tell us how much energy we’ve burnt in relation to our
calorific intake contained in a watch. Individuals have blood pressure monitors at home – where in
some undeveloped countries you won’t find such a thing even in a hospital. And
yet never has self induced illness been more prevalent. Never have more
children been obese and more adults been killing themselves with substance
abuse, poor lifestyle choices, processed food and polluted environments.
Recently I received notification that I had to renew
my driving licence with the new self contained photo card – which is to all
intents and purposes personal ID by the back door. In this country ID cards
were voted down as something the public did not want but the government has
found a way round that. I am unsure whether to renew my card as I do not have a
car in any event.
Try contacting any customer service of any large
organisation and you will be in an automated queue with numerous click button
options until you fear for your sanity.
In supermarkets there are DIY check outs so that you
need never speak to a soul while you are shopping. For some folk that was
possibly the only human contact in a day.
And all the technology in the world doesn’t seem to
be able to stop a young man shooting up worshipers in a church or another
killing holiday makers on a beach. No. For that we need real human interaction
and engagement. But as long as we keep telling ourselves that technology is the
answer we will be able to side step the genuine and pressing issues that are
taking us ever closer to melt down.