Digital Technology
Technology is in the process of
transforming our lives to a great extent in the coming decades. I am more
interested and concerned about the way in which it is affecting our thinking
process or our relation with our context. How is technology changing our
perceptions regarding who we are and how we behave? Exactly what qualities get
transformed in this process? What new dimensions of thought get generated and
what gets discarded from our minds? This is the central focus of this topic –
the attempt to explore the impact of technology on our minds.
I wish to focus essentially on
digital technology and the way it has impacted all fields.
We continuously are getting tuned
to social online media, facebook, twitter, internet, youtube, and so on. More
and more of our real time and real experiences are getting consumed or replaced
by experiences formed by constant exposure to ‘virtual reality’ through use of
smart phones, laptops, palmtops, ipads etc. What are the impacts?
1. Power
of choice - We are no longer dictated by
established knowledge centers coming from top to bottom hierarchical structure
of society. Information is available to one and all to read, consume, interpret
and act on. This means I am not bounded by any source of information. I can
accept or reject based on the alternatives that I have access to. At one end of
the spectrum, this means constant challenges to existing structures of
knowledge-power and a greater emphasis on constant change and innovation.
Digital technologies have brought in new options of doing things in fresh ways
and it boasts of increased efficiency and decreased time cycle for giving an
output. The traditional relation of employer to employee or teacher to student
or a parent to child is challenged. Conformist attitude is thrown out of the
window and what has taken place is adoption of argumentative attitude – in professional
and personal relationships.
2. Displacement
of traditional skills – Hand skills are replaced by automated and efficient
ways of doing the same thing. We are witnessing displacement of traditional,
hand skill sets which are believed to be time consuming, less efficient, having
a variable output. Thus, preference is to get things assembled and done by a
machine rather a few masons who can build a wall. What we see is the advent of
machine aesthetics rather than aesthetics generated by the use of hand. We are
no longer involved in doing things ourselves and learning from that experience.
We do not take feedback from our non visual senses. A larger part of this
fallout is having no time to develop a sense of history or tradition that gets
developed through association with people, doing things together, using
traditional skill sets etc.
3. Control
of activities at micro level: The efficiency guaranteed by automation and
digital technology makes it possible to feed ‘real time’ data of particular
phenomenon and monitor its growth/ behavior. Automated signals that respond to
density of traffic, weather forecasts, are such examples. While it reduces the
cost of deploying people for managing micro tasks, it is controlling the way we
decide to do things even at a micro level. We are forced to take decisions and
respond as per inputs asked by the system at micro level. That means, more
decisions and discussions and time is spent in deciding proper output at micro
levels. This consumes our energies and nothing substantial ever happens at
macro level. This also leads to lesser freedom and choice to do things in
alternative way at a micro level.
4. All
this collectively means increased individual responsibility to take care of
countless number of micro things in daily life. The system asks us to respond
to all inputs at a microlevel so as to generate a proper solution. The habit
leads to exhaustion, anxiety, and reduced human contact. It leads to lesser
tolerance levels (because of increased expectations of higher efficiency by the
system), lesser understanding and lesser faith in human output. Micro level
analysis forces one to think only at the moment and not to consider the ‘big’
picture. Since a moment changes in a second, one is continuously engrossed
chasing this perceived change in the system and worrying about consequences and
repercussions as the moment changes and newer information is made available the
next instant. That ultimately leads to the belief that the ‘moment’ is the only
truth available to analyse and act. That has made us volatile and stressed most
of the times. That has also led to sharpening of the intellect, discarding
emotions and feelings all together (since they take a longer time to develop and
understand; and their output appears illogical and thus inefficient). This
experience is felt as being inhuman and resembling something like a robot.
Ironically, we are being dictated by the system and as we get more and more
pulled into the grasp of the automated systems and digital technologies, our behavior
is going to be predictable and automated like a robot. Such is the unfortunate
reality of our times.
5. Loss
of memory: There is no need to memorize anything from dates, anniversaries,
tasks, meeting schedules and so on. That’s good. But that also leads to
weakening of memory. We can’t say tables, we make basic English spelling
mistakes, grammar is becoming pathetic and we don’t seem to recollect anything.
Since technology also changes, products change on account of up gradation and
our memories can’t be formed through owning any kind of an object for a minuscule
life span. Our associations with objects is fleeting and does not generate any
sort of memories – good or bad
6. We
over analyze and crib about minute change. Our tolerance has gone drastically
down. We emphasis our own output and distort differences. We fail to
acknowledge or see any commonality in culture and mankind. In short, we have
become less tolerant and super sensitive to one another. This is creating unnecessary
noise, commotion, hype, arrogance and so on. In a country like India, which has
huge amount of diversity, being extra sensitive to differences in cultural
traits has to be viewed with caution.
7. More
and more of our time is getting filled by activities. Lesser space and time is
available for introspection, silence, contemplation – the crucible of
creativity. Emptying the mind is utmost necessary to bring about revolutionary
solution (or a meaningful transformation). How will good solutions happen if
this introspection is not done at all? Silence is also required to understand
people, their deepest intentions that can’t be expressed in words. We are
constantly compelled to think and that is leading to complicated conclusions.
To be simple, thinking wisely and only to a certain point is required. We are
turning verbose, and we are harming ourselves by not being silent and by not
listening to our senses and our environment.
8. We
are heading towards a lonely lifestyle surrounded by automated solutions. What
is challenged is the need to meaningfully connect with people. Since the power
of interpretation of each individual is accentuated, there is absolutely no
common ground to agree on anything. We only discuss, we shout. Everybody is
talking but is anybody listening with heart? Is anybody attempting to arrive at
a solution that caters to common good? This is the central question.
The Western life is already
dictated by the automated and digital technology. Architecture is the same
throughout the American continent, people behave the same, dress code is the
same, the thinking pattern is the same/ predictable. One’s routine is
predictable and constant throughout one’s life. One hardly sees anybody and
there is no need to interact or depend on anybody. People stay in the same home
but each individual’s opinion is poles apart from his/ her own family members.
One might stay in one apartment but one will rarely come to know who stays in
the adjoining flat. How can a feeling of community ever develop in this
scenario? How can that lead to tolerance and understanding towards others? The
impression that America gives about her lifestyle is false or incomplete. To
embrace the Western outlook, is to remain aloof, intolerant, arrogant and
ruthlessly aggressive towards your own people, at the cost of achieving
economic independence and individual freedom.
Whether we should tread that path
is a matter of choice.
