Love + Hate Relationship = Technology

“For some people, the very idea of reading a book has come to seem old-fashioned, maybe even a little silly- like sewing your own shirts or butchering your own meat” Carr,8

In The Shallows, Mr. Nicholas Carr chronicles the history of various ways we have devitalized information over the centuries. As he describes, it seems that with every new medium, from oral tradition to books, newspapers, radio, televisions and know internet, there are some who call that the world will be destroyed because of the new medium. The fear of the “unknown” media is because it could corrupt our minds and even our souls.

The author also points out that every generation seems to believe that the start of new media technologies will cause serious problems in our society (New Year 2000). Mr. Carr also explains how the internet is different from the technologies of the past. The internet pushes the people to learn always new thinks and this is the challenge for the human being.

On the other hand Nicholas Carr cites various studies that demonstrate how multitasking is a myth and that some of our deep, critical thinking skills could shrivel to a degree because of lack of use which reminds me to Darwinism, “Use it or lose it”.

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship to technology. I strongly believe that we human being are amazingly adaptive creatures. But we do have our limits. In ways, we did not evolve to live in the world in which we now live. For example, we need about the same amount of sleep and calories nowadays as we did thousands of years ago. The technology can change fast but our “habits” cannot change overnight. Therefore, we should not drive ourselves crazy to catch the technology and we should try to relax and benefit from technology.

I found this short documentary where people explain their love hate relationship to technology.

Ayse