Falling in Love with Technology

Have you noticed how much people love their new iPhones? Maybe you are one of them. People I know who have them talk about their new acquisitions like I remember talking about a new girlfriend. They act like they love them! Infatuated even!

 

While no one can contest the enormous attraction people have for technology with all its gimmickry and dazzling new magic tricks, it warrants taking a look at what it is exactly that draws us to it. I look back at my life and recall “falling in love” several times in my early years only to discover later on, and usually after some disappointment and pain, that it wasn’t really love but was closer to obsession.

 

Why do we become enamored of things, particularly technological gadgetry? The most rational reason I can think of is it allows us to do more with less, and makes our lives easier. This is reminiscent of farmers giving up their horse-drawn plows and buying tractors and hay bailers in the early 20^th Century, or taking the train across the prairies rather than riding for weeks on end by horseback.   

 

Another reason we are attracted to new things like technology is that we feel “in the know” – on the leading edge, “with it,” cool and perhaps, admired by our peers. I recall this in my days as a teenager and young adult. It was “cool” to have certain cars, certain tools and certain technologies, like a stereo (yes, I was a teenager when stereophonic phonographs came out and it was really awesome to have that technology in the 1950s).

 

Then there’s the obsession aspect: we can become obsessed with new things that address certain pathological needs we may have. These are usually outside our awareness or consciousness. This could include anything that we can identify with that makes us feel better about ourselves, or a distraction that allows us to escape our reality and find a new place to become engaged, even entranced. I see this entrancement as

iPhone

users rush to find an answer to something being discussed whipping them out of their holsters faster than a Western gunfighter.

 

And, by the way, they just left our conversation which is now on hold until the “fast gun” returns to the conversation after his / her immersion into their handheld libraries.

 

I had lunch with a friend the other day and she told me how she can get lost in social networking and other Internet applications. Hours go by without her being aware of the time. She seems to know the difference between obsession and mere intense engagement and was concerned that she was feeling more obsessed than engaged, as if it she were taking an addictive drug.   

 

Are we looking for tools that make our lives easier like farmers in the early 1900s or are we seeking escape? There were predictions in the 1960s that computers would make the eight hour work day obsolete, that the leisure industry would flourish. We now work more hours than we did then, on average. We are more stressed, busier and take less down time than almost any other nation. And we have technological marvels at our disposal to do three times the work we did a generation or two ago. So, it seems to me, there is a question: If we have the technology to produce 300% more why are we busier, more stressed and taking less leisure time?

 

What do you think? Why do you think this upside down condition has persisted throughout the U.S. and much of the rest of the so-called developed world? Is our busyness a cover for our misery? Is our obsession filling some hole in our souls? Your comments are most welcome.

 

For more about John, his writings and his work, see his website.

Comments

[John]

well, my friends have enjoyed giving me a bad time since this was posted, whipping out their iPhones at every opportunity so it seems I have exasperated the phenomenon within my own circles, at least temporarily....{: