Technology Withdrawal... Feeling Lost Without Your Tech
from the what-do-I-do-now? dept
Earlier today, people took us way too seriously when we jokingly asked whether or not technology makes us smarter. We were more making fun of that question showing up every few months when reporters don't have anything else to write about, but people seem to love to debate the question. A much more interesting discussion, however, may be what happens when you lose some technology you've come to rely on. A few years ago, we discussed this in the extreme case of Steven Mann who is trying to live his life as a "cyborg," but was forced to remove his computer equipment to board a plane. The loss of such technology made it difficult for him to function. He claimed he had trouble walking and even fell down a few times. Obviously, that's an extreme example, but you can certainly see how it could apply to more everyday examples. For example, in this blog post, someone from the Institute for the Future notes that his car's GPS navigation system was stolen recently -- and even though he knows his way around the city, he proceeded to feel disoriented and get lost, since he was so used to having the navigation system to rely on. It seems likely that these kinds of "technology withdrawal" situations are going to become more common.
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The Values of Youth
Young people feel it is bad to rely on machines for everyday activities. As they get older, and they need their electric wheelchairs, elevators, and dentures, they will stop feeling that people have some sort of moral obligation to live without machines.
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Paradoxically
The youth advocating these values are the same people who wear machines to help destroy their hearing faster. When they get their hearing aids later on, we'll hear what they have to say about "feeling lost" without them. ;-)
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Not new - EYEGLASSES!
Can I point out many people are severely limited without their glass or plastic optical enhancement devices? And this is accepted?
And then there's calculators and math ...
The invention of writing affected people's memory skills (not memory _per se_, but skills).
This is all a very old phenomena.
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