Technology and Humanness

Technology intends to provide a more agreeable means to some end we desire. Whether it is the steam-engine, the spoon, an anti-biotic, or the iphone, I take the definition stated above to capture the general idea of what we describe as technological.

In what follows I will begin by discussing the nature of technology and some of the problems concealed within it. Then I will discuss our relation to efficiency and the erasure of our humanity, which I take to be our main concern when it comes to the technological realm. Lastly, I discuss what technology means for “choice.” Throughout this essay, I will use either personal experience or t.v. commercials to help support these perhaps abstract points. I’d love to hear feedback on this; its something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, and, after reflection, is something I’ve subconsciously been concerned with for a while now.

Technology’s goal (our goal in producing it) does not involves its own existence. When a technology is nascent, its existence is painfully obvious. The first computers were bulky, taking up entire rooms. Then, with the advent of the personal computer, they only took up half the surface-space of a typical office desk. Now, they can be hidden in our pocket. So what is created in light of a desire for some end is then discarded and replaced by something better, something less ugly, less in the way. What this shows is the obvious fact that we want the end-product, not the device itself. We want to improve our communication, not have a cumbersome phone on our person for the sake of the item.

There is an Xbox Konnect commercial that simply states: “You are the controller”. This shows that the game consol is literally destroying itself. It is also interesting that our computers, tv’s, phones, computers and gaming consols are all becoming the same thing. A corollary is that ‘technology,’ whatever it is, is not the pieces of technology, nor the aggregate of all the pieces across time; rather, it is a particular human method of achieving ends.

While technology has solved many issues, it almost never is the case that some invention does not bring other undesired aspects along with it. As a result, we have new issues, which require new means of being dealt with. An easy example for this is cords. Our devices first needed cords to stay charged and be connected. But cords are ugly and cumbersome. So now we have battery-based, wireless everything. Cordless charging now exists for cell phones and cordless power for our wall-mounted, flatscreen t.v.s is only a few years out.

There is a Microsoft commercial advertising a “simplified” touch-screen phone that won’t bog you down when trying to find a contact, phone number, or app. In an information age, we want ALL the information; thus, technology did what we asked of it and we ended up with phones/internet devices with conceivably thousands of apps (the Droid slogan is: When there’s no limit to what Droid gets, there’s no limit to what Droid does). The perceived problem is that we now don’t know what to do with all this information and all those apps! We have a new hurdle, so we invent a new device. But what is significant is that Windows suggests to us that the only way out is to buy their phone, which only uses a few, big (easy-to-press) buttons. We end up feeling like we “need” to buy more and more stuff to take care of these new problems technology always seems to bring with it, even if the new devices had little to do with the initial desired end (technology and consumerism are symbiotic to say the least). What is worth noting is that there is always a residue. A new device does not simply resolve some problem, but also exists in its own right, creating some new sort of relation. And given enough time, this technological residue clings so tightly, we think it is a part of us, a part of our being human.

A quite serious consequence which emanates from this technological residue is that it is not too difficult to prefer the technological realm to the reality. For instance, there is a Vizio t.v. commercial that has a man choosing the t.v. version of Beyonce over the real Beyonce right in front of him. Or take note of the Microsoft commercial where a woman photoshops her family portrait so that it can be “presentable,” which presumes that how her family actually looks is something to be hidden or done away with. While these are meant to be jokes, there are many instances like this that aren’t so ridiculous, nor so laughable. For instance, think about the number of people who would rather talk on-line than in person, or the person who would rather masterbate to pornography than have any sort of intimate relation with a fellow human being. What’s worse, in some cases, the person’s mind is so altered by the cyber-sex that even when they do have human contact, it isn’t enjoyable (or they can’t even do it) because they’d much prefer to do it alone, illuminated by the pornography whose reality is in their control. Technology’s residue, in this instance, turns our sexuality into something we can’t enjoy without it.

Per my definition of technology, efficiency is built in to what technology essentially is. If technology is the creation of a means to an end we can’t readily achieve on our own, then technology is our vehicle of efficiency (or method as stated earlier).

The most striking commercial that openly displays what technology implies for us is a Droid phone commercial. In the commercial, a businessman is at a meeting, seated at a conference table surrounded by a host of fellow-business-types. While a presentation is being given at the head of the table, the man is texting on his Droid phone. As he types, his fingers move at an increasing speed. Slowly, starting with his fingertips, which are rapidly tapping at the phone screen, his arms turn into what appears to be a machine-like system of metal and joints. The voice for the commercial, in a deep, assertive tone, states that, with Droid, you too can become a “model of efficiency”.

Notice what happens: the human becomes replaced. While the Droid doesn’t actually turn your arms into machine pistons, firing away as you text, the implication is very real. Prior to the conceivable reality of having our physical bodies become machines (which isn’t that unrealistic), we have a very near reality where our human-ness is destroyed; instead of a machine displacing our body, it is efficiency which displaces our humanity.

When thinking about the Droid commercial, notice the statement the voiceover pronounces as a selling-point: “a model of efficiency.” It is an assumption of the commercial that we would choose to give up our hands (not necessarily a metaphor here) in order to text more quickly. While we achieve efficiency, we revoke our humanity. Is it bad that we want to text more quickly? Not necessarily. Is it problematic when, slowly, we find ourselves more often than not, detached from our body, removed from our daily situations that help constitute our human-ness? Yes. One point I have not mentioned is that in this board meeting, he is obviously not paying attention, which is of course the purpose for his presence at the meeting in the first place. But what he chooses (and what so many of us already choose) is to digitally transport his person elsewhere. We disengage from our surroundings; we transport ourselves elsewhere. But that elsewhere isn’t quite a ‘here’ (another example of the residue). Thus, we are no longer here nor are we quite there. And through this process, we no longer can find our place (our being) in the world.

Another example of our humanness being erased is found in an Xfinity commercial which, in promotion of their On Demand catalogue of shows and movies, portrays their t.v.-viewers as becoming 2-d screens or cut-outs of the shows they’re watching. The people are erased by their shows; they “become” the endless shows they’re watching.

Keeping in mind the 2nd definition of technology, e.g. that it is a vehicle of efficiency, I continue with the theme of ‘efficiency’ and focus on the resulting problems of choice and decision (or lack thereof). Almost comically, there is now an app for Robitussen that helps you pick the right medicine for whatever ails you… because Robitussen now has so many medicines tailored to individual symptoms that you simply couldn’t know which one to pick on your own (this also relates to the “only technology can save us from technology” idea). This hopefully brings to the surface an issue that pervades our world today.

If part of getting what we want is being able to find the thing that best fits our desire, then part of technology’s task is to provide us with the most options (internet shopping is a more than sufficient example). But at some point, our world becomes saturated with choices, both in the number of possible options constantly being presented to us and in our incessant decision-making acts those options require of us. What this means in our present age then, is that our choices are everywhere. Choice used to be a privilege, or a moment of joy. Imagine the excitement when a person could first choose between his thousandth coconut and fresh fish, which he could acquire due to his invention of a spear. Fast-forward to now, and most restaurants have menus so big they cover an entire table if each person has one.

We have gotten to the point now that at almost every moment, we have a choice to make. DirecTV boasts of over 6,000 shows and movies. Rhapsody has a commercial promoting a 60-day trial use of their vast, online song collection. They point out that, if you use their product, your whole day can have a soundtrack and each moment is filled with “infinite possibilities.” Everything has become available to us. But, as technology progresses, all choices become equal in value. The ‘cons’ kind of disappear and all we see are ‘pros’. Thus, not only are we bombarded with choices, but, piled on top of them, we also have the weight of making the right choice (if I had all the options in front of me, why didn’t I pick the right one!?!?!). This leads to a disabling effect. We see here that technology no longer gets us to our end more efficiently; to the contrary, it turns our end back in on itself and blocks our access to what we really wanted in the beginning.

We end up not with an acquisition of our end, but with efficiency working only for efficiency’s sake. As an example, I once spent 30 minutes in a video store! I spent a third of the length of the movie I eventually watched, just trying to pick the movie itself! Suddenly, my goal of watching a movie becomes an obsession with picking one. What we are left with is a deep uncertainty about our choice. And when our life is filled with choice after choice, we quickly find ourselves uncertain a lot of the time. And uncertain people are anxious, full of self-doubt, and lack contentment.

What began as a desire for some end, becomes an obsession with achieving our ends more quickly. Our logic: Ok, I can get what I want, now how can I get it in the best way? But notice this conflates the end with the means; we no longer focus on the end, but on the process by which we get there. Part of our end becomes the means. Soon enough, our obsession overcomes us, and we lose our goals (not to mention ourselves) in the process. This really hits home for me. I have noticed that I’ll spend so much time planning and weighing options, that I end up wasting more time than if I just went with a plan of action and worked it out as I went along. The “model of efficiency” becomes nothing more than that; it consumes the human, just like the Droid commercial depicts it. Somewhere between having a goal and working it out, we destroy our ability to get there. Consequently, our life becomes filled with either the achievement of ends that quickly become obsolete and thus meaningless, or with a series of goals that we never reach, because we’re too “busy” figuring out how to get to them. Our human-ness is not enhanced, but replaced by this “model of efficiency”.

What I find most shocking is that the aspects of technology I find so problematic turn out to be the explicit selling-points for the various devices.

60 some years ago, Heidegger had his own issues with technology, some of which I’ve most likely restated above. The most jaw-dropping part of his work on the subject, in my opinion, is that he PREDICTED the invention of “stand-by” flying… No joke. Over 60 years ago, he pointed out that, in a world of technology, the technology will eventually lose its tool-ness for us, and the relationship of human and tool is lost. In his words, “[e]verywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering.” No longer are the planes existing for us to get from city to city, but now, we will fly “stand-by” and wait for when a plane next flies… all in the name of efficiency. What a brilliant, sobering prognostication.

What should we do? Good question. Heidegger suggests we focus on what Hubert Dreyfus phrases as "the saving power of insignificant things". I think this isn’t far off. Don’t treat your walk in the park as a time to make a phone call you’ve been meaning to make. Don’t use your commute as a good time to eat breakfast. Don’t read that next book just to say you’ve read it.