Is technology changing the way we should be?
Listen to the Podcast:
https://anchor.fm/thuntuned/episodes/Is-Technology-altering-our-DNA-ejf1uc
The man-machine ecosystem has been a hot topic of debate and apprehensions for a decade now. From Automation to artificial intelligence to augmented reality, the discussion is all about machines crossing the boundaries of work performed by humans, primarily on the cognitive functions. While, there is a widespread fear of many of us losing our jobs to machines, counter justified with advantages of sophistication, hyper reality and accuracy in repetitive processes; the biggest concern is the intrinsic change technology is inducing in the way humans behave naturally.
Seeking continuous feedback and validation
We are always connected and always creating — creating that status message, creating a new photo album, creating a new viral post. The low cost of creation and lower barrier to critics have made us all obsessed about creating content and making us believe to satiate our creative appetite. Being recognised as a creative self is a “Esteem” need and is mostly perceived as a self-actualisation need fulfilment too, so all of us like it. On the contrast, creative process is supposed to a slow process naturally and it is a process of matching your imagination backwards with the reality. A much faster creative process loses on the aspect of transitioning a perceived visualisation into a real world, this creates a negative stimulus in our brains to seek feedback on the output in an unreal response framework, leading to anxiety. This is tremendously hazardous to the physiological and mental functioning . Not only that, We also seek validation on a constant real time basis for how much to we tell about ourselves to others, sometime not even presenting the correct information. This leads to identity conflict of who you are with who you want to be perceived as. The happiest place on the earth is Facebook, ironically. Our virtual identities are our real identities with virtual embellishments that make us look happy, all the time. This is a conflict, a conflict between an emotional response mechanism and an algorithmic response mechanism.
Multi-Tasking in a hyper connected setup
Multi-tasking is good only when it is needed to avoid a contingency. Sharing your span of attention across multiple things is a trade-off between the ability to perform more tasks with the ability to perform your task at hand better. This applies to our brains too. The functioning of our brains is not just about being productive and do more tasks, it is also about doing things with deep attention. The tasks that do not need active attention span are naturally performed in the background and need lesser coordination between mental and physical stimulations. The world of connected multi-devices and hyper connectivity has forced us to Multi-task , in an unrealistic way. If you look at babies, their attention span is extremely low but they do not multitask, they switch over. As we grow, our brain adapts to multitask than switching over since we need to complete task ,not just initiate. This is a tiresome process and leads to wear and tear of our mental health. This is leads to fatigue due to fear of not being able to complete something or missing out on something , because you have too many tasks at hand.
Passive consumption of Ambience
One of the things Technology has done to our lives is to enhance our connectivity in the virtual world , and detach us from the real ambience psychologically. The power of observation is the most important trait we humans have. If you think of creative geniuses and innovators , they all have great observation powers, ability to observe others , ability to observe nuances. For you to observe, it is important to be connected. We all are guilty of being glued to our devices , on the transit and the dining tables . This detachment leads to lack of empathy for others and violates the basic premise of happiness — be in the moment. This trains our sub-conscious to seek loneliness, and be contended with a limited screen , that is constantly shrinking. The un-involved presence also increases the vulnerability with the ambience we are exposed to in the physical world.
The universe is changing and it is changing faster, technology is pushing us to the boundaries of cognitive dissonance with our evolution maturity. The awareness and concerns about mental health are not just about how we have evolved as a society but also about how we have rushed to embrace technology to an extent of forcing us to behave like machines — Binary responses, Faster processing, Objective output , convoluted connections and calculated depreciations. If machines do not replace humans at work, sooner than that, humans will just transform into machines. Not sure , Who should worry more — Machines or humans!
