An Eye Opening Glance Into How Modern Technology and Social Media Turns People Into Slaves
By Alexander R. Tipton
What are the unseen shackles? Modern technology both complements and robs from our lives.
We live in a world struggling for control. It is likely that the very text you are reading is on such a figurative shackle; perhaps a smartphone or E-reader. Thus, we find the answer.
Modern Technology: A Tool of Convenience
It is in modern technology that we find ourselves reduced to slaves. We become shackled to our own uncontrollable urge for the perceived advantages and convenience that it offers.
Advances in modern technology have led to greater and greater access. In today’s world, accessing the internet is a click, swipe, or vocal command away from bringing an entire wealth of knowledge, information, and stimuli immediately to you. In thirty minutes or less, a modern child can access more information than a college educated doctor in the nineteenth century could in their entire lifetime.
Is it good or bad? There are solid arguments on both sides.
Technological advances have served wondrous purposes as it relates to the instant availability of information and knowledge. Everything from what to do during a heart attack or other emergency, all the way to the quickest route to a restaurant, or a loved one’s flight arrival time, are all instantly accessible.
It is when such a convenience becomes an uncontrollable urge to blind, dim, and lessen the physical world around us that we become shackled to its control over us.
How Much Control is Worth Convenience?
For most of history, human kind has existed in a constant struggle between the forces of security and freedom. The concepts of convenience, time management, and efficiency play a larger role in that struggle more than ever. It’s no argument that everyone wants to feel safe, secure, essentially in control. And no one wants to waste their valuable time.
How much control are you willing to give up in order to make life easier?
At what lengths would you find your limit?
Are you willing to surrender your own humanity?
You might think the answer easy, but you might surprise even yourself.
Ease of Access to Modern Technology
Part of the concern that modern technology’s hold on humanity raises is that it is just too convenient. It has become easier to do basic functions that used to take much longer and with greater struggle to accomplish.
If we were to look at the lifetime of Facebook, which spans barely 10 years, then we would realize that it has grown from something the average person used to check weekly (with the availability of computer access). Today, it is available to many of us constantly, anytime and anywhere.
The advent of ultra-fast connections in affordable hand-held devices have led to easy access. Facebook can be used constantly, if you desire.
Even Facebook has grown from a mere webpage into what has commonly become known as an app. In its new form, Facebook becomes even more accessible, utilizing device features to constantly update users with notifications and messages.
It goes beyond Facebook, as there are apps for just about everything. There are apps designed to manage other apps. Thus giving us the perception of control. But at what cost?
The Advent of Hand-Held Devices
A movie theater in North Carolina made national headlines when it suggested it would allow people to use handheld devices during a show. The theater believed young people avoided watching movies because they had to wait over an hour to check their phones. Needless to say, the internet exploded with a large negative response and the theater quickly backtracked.
Why did they think it was a good idea to begin with? The story proves that there is still some societal backlash to convenient modern technology… When it becomes an annoying distraction to someone else. However, is it possible that there is some truth to their theory about potential customers and mobile devices? It’s one of those ideas that is so improbable that it may be rooted in some societal truth.
Despite how people reacted, could many be guilty of doing the same and be unable or unwilling to accept it? How many times does the average person check their phone during a movie at the theater? It’s a hard number to figure because it’s not socially acceptable, yet many people do it daily.
The Need for Connection
It is considered taboo to check your phone during a movie, but movie goers complain about it. Could it be that the ease of access and temptation is simply too great for many people to resist?
Everyone has different boundaries. Some may find it acceptable during commercials before the previews to check their phone. Other may snag a look during the previews themselves. Finally, most theaters actually tell viewers to silence their phones before the main show begins. How many people are still tempted to sneak a peek during the feature presentation?
The bright LCD screen is easily seen in the dark, and everyone knows it, yet the temptation is still too great for many to resist. Is it possible that the ease of access is just too strong a temptation, or is everyone really so inconsiderate of others around them? The real answer depends on who you ask and how their perceptions of modern technology, self-control, and respect for others come together to form their stance.
It is possible to infer that people love their tech when it’s convenient and when someone else isn’t using it to disrupt their experience.
Modern Technology Affects Our Daily Lives
This problem spans into nearly every aspect of life. It has even become part of criminally enforced laws when it comes into use while operating a motor vehicle.
Even with countless studies on distracted drivers and laws against using devices while driving, many people still use their phone or other devices even when it is illegal to do so. We have likely all seen it at some point or another; the soccer mom sitting at a green light angrily staring at her phone, or the business man taking a call while trying to navigate a lane change on the interstate.
Such examples are commonplace. Despite the dangers, it continues to happen. We all know the laws, facts, and safety concerns. Could it be that the ease of access, convenience and allure of control are just too great?
We Love Modern Technology, When it Works
Sometimes modern technology turns on us in ways that drive us mad. It is in this concept that modern technology most outwardly shows its control over humanity.
Anyone who has ever had a mobile device, computer, or other modern machine has undoubtedly experienced any number of technical problems.
Most people appreciate their technological devices. They offer a powerful tool of convenience and connectivity, but when they don’t work we wonder how it can so easily leave us enraged.
Most anyone in the developed world has experienced something similar to the following. You type out a long and tedious form, page, or graph into a window. Then for whatever reason, the window reloads, refreshes, or closes before a true save can occur. You stare at the screen in sheer frustration and angst.
The human body is designed to deal with stress in one of three scientifically proven ways. It can prepare to fight, flee, or freeze all together. All three of these concepts have one major thing in common and that is that they can be applied immediately to address the problem. The stress one experiences with a modern technological problem, however, cannot be solved by those natural evolutionary responses.
To work through a technological problem one must stop, be patient, redo, and often carefully consider. None of those reactions are natural for most people when dealing with a frustration. It is for this reason that we so often see people “snap” at their computers, phones, or other devices.
That kind of stress can’t be managed by fighting, freezing, or running away. When you lose your data, it is simply a lack of efficiency that cannot be helped. This leaves us helpless to manage the problem in ways we are naturally inclined to follow.
Missing Time
Have you ever stopped and wondered where all the time in your day goes?
Do you often feel like you run out of time in the day? You’re not alone. This is a chief complaint of many living in western society.
It is easy to see where the time goes when you break down the averages.
Consider the average Westernized work day:
Sleep – 7 hours
Work – 8 hours
Commute- 1 hour
Survival – 4 hours
Time remaining – 4 hours
After sleep, work, commute and survival tasks such as cooking, eating, bathing, appointments, groceries and other essential chores or errands, the average person has 4 hours or less of time remaining in the day.
When you take the time remaining and add in screen time (social media, television, YouTube, or email), how much time do you think is left over? Not only does screen time make us feel like we have less leisure time, but it rarely leaves us feeling accomplished, relaxed, or motivated.
It’s largely a waste of time.
A study from Yale University revealed that in 2016 the average person spent two to three hours a day of their remaining free time utilizing some form of screen time. Considering those statistics, let’s look at the numbers again.
Sleep – 7 hours
Work – 8 hours
Commute- 1 hour
Survival – 4 hours
Screen time and Social media- 3 hours
Time remaining – 1 hour
Perhaps we feel like we have so little time because we waste much of our precious free time. This once again reveals how modern technology has ‘shackled’ us in an invisible way.
Making The Unseen Visible
Whether or not we accept that modern technology controls us is irrelevant. How much we let that knowledge dictate our thoughts and actions is relevant, however. There are many ways technology impacts us in negative aspects that some have yet to realize or even notice. This is especially prevalent as it relates to how modern technology allows us to communicate with other people.
Most people are unaware of the psychological effects modern technology has on others or even themselves. Let us look at a couple examples to further emphasize that point.
Text, instant messaging, email, and all other non-verbal, non-present communication have developed into extreme growth over the past twenty years. Such communication allows a lot of convenience, easy exchanges of information, data, and social contact. The interlaying problem with such communication, however, is that it lacks the very nature of what communication is intended to accomplish.
When two people are talking face to face, a lot more is going on than the simple exchange of information expressed in the spoken words of both individuals. Assuming both individuals are neither blind or deaf, an incredible number of things happens besides the information exchange.
When people become reliant on communication through excessive convenience allowed by technology, they can lose the very thing that makes communication have purpose. That very thing is meaning.
Communicated information works well when one is communicating simple information like 1 + 1 = 2, but when expressing feeling, emotion, tone, attitude, stance, or other aspects of communication, it is impossible to express such things using written text alone.
The Emptiness of Written Language
In the everyday we tend to forget how much we see that isn’t verbal. Body language conveys a vast array of information that is often subconscious. Facial expression, the angle of a person’s tilted chin, the position of their body, the placement or movement of hands, arms, or legs. These and more are all forms of body language that directly and indirectly speak volumes of observable information.
Even more so are the spoken words themselves. When someone speaks, they are not simply using a multitude of sounds compiled into understandable language. They are using a tone, a volume, a demeanor, and an attitude. These come together to form a speech pattern, a voice, and give character and individuality to the speaker’s intended purpose for speaking.
When someone wishes to convey that they are feeling joy and laughter, a lot happens. Let us examine several instances of such emotion and how they come out when modern technology is used to express them.
Lost in Translation
When texting, you might convey laughter as “lol.”
The sender misses out on your actual reaction.
A laugh is expressed emotion through body language, expression, and sound. By only reading a text saying “lol,” the sender does not see or hear these forms of communication and thus misses out on a majority of what actually happened and what was communicated.
Hearing someone laugh over a telephone call adds some stimuli that a text doesn’t provide. Hearing the laughter allows the receiver to gauge the intensity of the laugh, the length, and the personal character behind it.
Adding the variant of being face to face allows for full emersion into the experience. By seeing the other person laugh, the receiver sees their body language and their facial expression. They see how the person reacts and receives the full emotional response to the stimuli.
Is the laugh genuine?
Is it complimenting based on the situation?
We learn these things through non-text communication.
If the intention is to make the other person laugh, seeing it in person adds an incredible level of value to the laugh because it allows for such an increase in related stimuli to be returned to the sender.
“Lol” in a text is entirely up to interpretation as to how funny or positive the individual reacted to the stimuli. The sender may not receive the fullness of a positive or negative reaction they were looking for, and thus the last of returned stimuli results in a less than accurate understanding of the reaction that took place.
Modern Technology’s Missing Emotion
The same concept is especially prevalent as it relates to negative interactions or conflict.
When someone is emotional (sad, angry, fearful or otherwise), they tend to respond to written word differently than they might have otherwise. To further expand on this concept, let us look at another example.
If two individuals are arguing, a text or instant message discussion will likely only exacerbate the conflict rather than resolve it. The simple reason for this problem is that written word has much less meaning behind it and is much easier to associate with negative connotation when someone is angry or emotional.
This is where the concept of tone, body language, and attitude come into play. Those three aspects are vastly important in determining another person’s intentions, motive, and willingness to compromise or comply with a discussion topic.
Saying the words “I disagree” can have a vastly different meaning to a receiver if they can only read the words. With tone, attitude, and body language (which one can’t do with a text or instant message), the meaning is more accurate as to the intentions of the sender.
It’s Only Human
The very reality of human nature plays a great role as well. We are more likely to perceive written word negatively or with negative undertones than spoken word, especially as it relates to a disagreement or argument. For example, it is much easier to give another person the benefit of the doubt when you see them as another human being, rather than words on an LCD screen.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to log onto YouTube and scroll down to the comments section of just about any video. The things people say to one another on a moment by moment basis could be described as horrendous to the everyday onlooker in the real world, but online it’s just the way it is. When we speak to another present person we see their humanity, their expression, body language, and character. It is vastly different from a faceless screen name in cyberspace.
If one were to look at such a comment section on YouTube and see some of the things people have written to one another, it might be surprising. Would those same things have been said aloud to a person in the same room?
Probably not.
Except When It’s Not
It is in this vast difference from reality that cyber reality assists us all in becoming less human and something far more sinister all together.
When we forget that the person commenting, texting, or instant messaging on the other end of our devices is a real live person and we begin to treat them as something else, we fall prey to the convenience that technology provides. Through such convenience, we give up part of our own humanity and replace it with emotionless words on an LCD screen and fail to any longer treat others as though they were real people at all.
It is in such concepts that we become shackled to our mobile devices and thus become less human in our pursuit for easier access in ways to dehumanize one another.
Is Social Media Really Social?
The whole purpose of ‘social media’ is to connect with others in a network that you can share, and interact on. The question, however, is interacting on such a network really socializing?
One of the most obvious challenges to social media is the social part. When one is sitting by themselves alone, feverishly typing and swiping away on their mobile device, are they really participating in any form of social interaction?
The answer to that question is up for deliberation. What is apparent, however, is that the individual is not interacting with anyone in a way that eludes to all the stimuli discussed earlier.
Modern technology and social media have removed the need to actually interact with anyone face to face all together.
Friends for Real?
This type of concept is most noticeable when meeting up with someone whom one hasn’t seen in a long while. If the two people are well connected to one another on social media, it may seem that they are well caught up in each other’s lives even while it may have been years since they actually saw one another. In such a situation, are these people really “friends,” and do they really “know” one another?
As we have seen when it comes to social media, most people display, share, or show what they want about their lives. Facebook specifically tends to show others a ‘highlight reel’ of the most sharable or brag-able moments of one’s life.
Such a concept makes it impossible to gauge the real life that someone is living if one only follows them on social media. When one can only see what others want to show them, it leaves a lot of room for confusion. To put it simply, social media allows for people to be much more “fake” than they could ever have been in the past.
To follow up such a statement, one could simply say, “so what?” What is wrong with someone displaying the “best” parts of their life on the internet? The answer may be nothing. But does it create a disconnect from the social media world to the real world? And if it does, does that disconnect lead to another invisible shackle?
Freeing From the Invisible Hold of Modern Technology
So now what? We have seen the negative psychological, social, and moral implications of utilizing modern technology to communicate, interact, and entertain with one another, but what can any of us do about it?
The facts remain that modern technology is just too convenient. The ability to be constantly online, plugged in, connected, and multitasking is just too efficient.
Progress can never really be stopped. It is what drives the industrial and business world, and no such world is going to slow down in pursuit of feelings or emotion.
Human nature drives us all to pursue what optimizes our perceived lives. As the allure of modern technology pushes everyone to be more and more connected, in many ways it pulls us away from the things people enjoy most in life. Can technology ever really replace things like love, friendship, intimacy, excitement or teamwork? One could argue that a push back against it has already started.
Alexander R. Tipton is a freelance fiction and self-help writer. You can learn more about him and his work at www.TiptonBooks.Webs.Com or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/AlexanderRTipton
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