Sunday, November 8, 2009

Slave to the Computer

Why should we continue to invent new technology? I demand to know, when increasingly we are it's slaves. We are fooled into serving it. It's great lie, is that it will free us. More and more we create that which is supposed to grant us more time. What it allows, is for more to be done in less time.

The cruel paradox is thus: We are expected to do more in less time. We are held accountable to these great expectations by employers, teachers. We're doing it to ourselves, the technology itself does not inherently demand more from us. And the time that is left? We are expected to continue to put in as much as we had before. Which means we are producing much more in the same amount of time, but we are being sorely taxed for it. The human mind and body was not meant to multitask as much as we are being asked. The mind focuses on one task at a time. Our neural pathways don't cross wire mid-task.

What are the total societal consequences of such a pervasive mentality?

Mental break-down, stress, depression, anxiety, sickness, violence, suicide.

This adds up to a huge monetary and humanitarian toll on our society. Is it worth it?