Technology is eating at us like leaf miners, leaving chewed tunnels in the sense of self of so many. Every day I work with or meet a new teenager who has lost creativity, imagination, problem solving skills, patience. There is an implanted need to be gratified right now, like a tantruming two-year-old who cannot see or perceive past her nose. The smart phone replaces the need to smoke as we wait for a friend at a bar and, though less likely to cause cancer, it seems more likely to invite social anxiety and isolation. We never needed a law that stopped us from smoking and driving due to deaths caused by distraction. Will we lose total control over the power to create our own neuropathways as we get more and more sucked into the directives given to us by the many screens by which we run our lives?
Technology is eating at us like leaf miners, leaving chewed tunnels in the sense of self of so many. Every day I work with or meet a new teenager who has lost creativity, imagination, problem solving skills, patience. There is an implanted need to be gratified right now, like a tantruming two-year-old who cannot see or perceive past her nose. The smart phone replaces the need to smoke as we wait for a friend at a bar and, though less likely to cause cancer, it seems more likely to invite social anxiety and isolation. We never needed a law that stopped us from smoking and driving due to deaths caused by distraction. Will we lose total control over the power to create our own neuropathways as we get more and more sucked into the directives given to us by the many screens by which we run our lives?
ReplyDelete