In
writing about the effects of modern technology on human behavior, there has
been a focus in this column on how modern technology directly affects the
user. How does the experience of the
configuration of stimuli that emanates from a technological device or a whole
technological environment affect how a user thinks, how a user feels and how a
user acts. The focus in the column has
been on the sensory distortion generated by the technology and how this, in
turn, creates behavioral distortion in the user (what has been called in this
column conative acceleration and conative anesthesia) and distortion of the
user’s sense of self (the person eventually slides into becoming like a robot).
But
there is another significant dimension to the effects of modern technology on
human behavior, and that is how does modern technology influence the users of
modern technology to relate to the people around them. How do people who work with computers all day
relate to their spouses and their children?
How do employers relate to their employees and vice versa and how do
workers relate to their fellow workers?
How do students relate to their contemporaries and to their
parents? How do students and teachers
relate to each other?
In a
previous article, there was a discussion about how crimes took the form of
crimes of passion in more traditional pre-industrial societies and crimes of
numbness in modern technological societies.
It has been my opinion that our increasingly frictionless modern living
environments lead people to enter a frictionless level of numbness in their
life experience, which, in turn, leads them to commit crimes to feel
alive. But a hurt against another person
or persons doesn’t have to rise to the level of a crime to have a negative
effect.
Perhaps
the best way of describing the effects of technology on a user, in order to
understand the foundations for what happens in the interactions between users
and the people around them, is to think of technology today as a form of
addiction. Particularly movies,
television, video games, computers, smartphones and tablets. If one is going to live in an environment
where one is surrounded by the sensory distortion created by technology, at
least let a person have some control over it by focusing his attentions on
miniature versions of these sensorily distorted environments – namely, the
technological devices already enumerated.
And in these miniature worlds, one can balance out the levels of
stimulation one receives. If a person is
feeling numb, he can go into his screen reality and watch an action movie on
Netflix or listen to some rap music on iTunes.
If a person is feeling overstimulated, he can search the Internet for a
new pair of boots or immerse himself in numbing reams of meaningless data. People today become very immersed in their
technology as a means of stabilizing themselves.
And
this is what happens in other addictions.
People try to balance out the imbalance of stimuli inside their heads by
using food, alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex.
They go back and forth between states of understimulation and
overstimulation, between vacuum states and tension-pocket states. In truth, a true balance or even an
approximate balance is never truly achieved.
And this is why people remain addicted or stuck on these substances and
activities.
The
same can be said of the people using technological devices. Except in these cases, the imbalance is at
least partly created by the global modern technological living environments in
which the users are living. The users
use technological devices to stimulate their internal living environments –
their minds – to balance out the imbalanced stimuli they receive from their
external living environments in the external world.
Ultimately,
the only real way to protect against the sensory discomfort created by the
sensory distortion of modern technological society is to change one’s sense of
self so that one becomes more like the technological devices that one
uses. One becomes like a robot. One develops a sense of self based on
internal mental environments of infinite continuous vacuum stimuli and pockets
of defined discrete figure stimuli. It
is like vaccinating oneself against the sensory distortion of modern
technological society. Robots, when they
are turned off, keep still in their vacuum, and when they are turned on they
move in an overly defined discrete jolty angular way. And the ongoing interaction with consumer
technological devices is a way for a person to continue to stimulate and
exercise his robotic nature so that he can continue to feel protected against
sensory distortion.
The
configurations of sensorily distorted stimuli lead to configurations of robotic
thought patterns in a modern technological user’s mind, which lead to robotic
presentations of self and more specifically robotic behavior. This leads to the people around him
experiencing alternately understimulation and overstimulation in his
presence. The user can ignore the people
close to him, not spend much time with them, or simply be psychologically
not-present when they are present. He
can do most of his communication with these people through the mediated path of
their smartphones, computers and tablets.
Or the user can find a way to generate abrasive friction with the people
around him. A user can generate the kind
of abrasive disputes that lead to separation from family members, people in the
work place, or people in the community.
They can commit crimes of numbness, crimes that pull them out of their
numbness in an abrasive jolting way, like robots being turned on. Chronic modern technology users become
increasingly incapable of the kind of organic bonding that is the foundation
for stable grounded relationships.
In
particular, modern parents model for their children by being less and less
present for their children, both physically and psychologically. And when they are present, they try to leave
their imprints on their children by being controlling and critical. In many cases, they push their children
constantly to achieve and achieve. From
the earliest years. After all, if the
child is busy achieving, he doesn’t have so much time or state of mind to make
demands for intimacy and interaction with his parents. So the child is pushed to do well in
pre-school to get in the best elementary school to get into the best high
school to get into the best college or university to get into the best graduate
school to get the best job.
The
understimulation of not being present much and the overstimulation of being
controlling, demanding and critical.
Vacuum and tension pocket. But
people who are pushed to achieve, who
are not at the same time given strong emotional bonding, become robotic. Children slowly incrementally become
configured to become robotic like their parents. This, in addition to the robotic influences
of the children’s own intense involvement with modern consumer technological
devices. So the influences of the
robotic parents reinforce the influence of children’s direct involvement with
modern machines.
There
is a strong moral aspect to consider when dealing with the way modern parents
bring up their children. To the extent
that these parents impart their robotic attitudes to their children and to the
extent that children are given the unlimited opportunity to use modern consumer
technological devices, we can say that parents are influencing their children
to move away from their organic human essence towards the development of a more
robotic sense of self. Which, in the
long run, prevents these children from satisfying their deeper emotional
needs. And leads them to feel hardened
and empty.
To
the extent that parents use modern consumer technological devices a lot and
live surrounded by an extremely technological environment, to that extent the
parents are going to develop behavior and attitudes that are immoral according
to the standards just discussed. This is
because a person does have some choice in his degree of involvement with
technology, and because parents are hurting their children at an age when the
latter are most open and vulnerable to being transformed by the robotic
behavior and attitudes of others.
Now
it is not just the influence of parents over children that provides the
opportunity for immoral robotic interactions.
As dwellers in modern technological environments, we are all potentially
influenced by the robotic technology users that surround us. At the same time, our own robotic behavior
influences others. So it is not only the
modern consumer technological devices that hurt people, but also other people
in their roles as robotized modern technology users as well. And these users have a choice to limit to
some extent their addiction, their use of these devices, not only to avoid
becoming totally robotized themselves, but to avoid spreading robotizing
influences to others. It’s something for
all of us to think about as we engage in our consumer technology activities.
No comments:
Post a Comment