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March 07, 2017

Trade-offs of Technology Use

By Special Guest
James Heim, Content Writer

Three basic trade-offs of technology use and some of their unintended effects

In the last few generations, technology’s highly sped up pace of progression has given us a great amount of benefits. Abundance of food, health benefits, ease of information processing and access, great increases in mobility, and the financial gains that technology’s development brings about are among the key benefits. These evident advantages in turn constantly stimulate us to invest further into technology invention and application, spurring new cycles of technology creation and consumption.



However, to receive such benefits, something must be “given.” In other words, the benefit is one side of a trade-off. We still ignore or belittle these trade-offs, as fully acknowledging them questions some key pillars of our current technology culture. But recognizing the trade-offs of technology use is crucial for creating a technology culture that can sustain a free and diverse human experience.

Overpopulation and overuse of natural resources, ever rising energy needs, environmental pollution and degradation, human-caused species extinction, lifestyle diseases, increasingly powerful means of monitoring and control by governments or corporations, etc. Developments like these are all connected to our technologies. They are recognized as problematic developments. Yet regarding effects that impact humanity’s essence, there is little awareness. Below are three trade-offs that concern essentials of the human experience.

Our basic means
Our time and attention, our curiosity and creativity, our ability to analyze and cooperate, or the energies and enthusiasm we can muster are some of the basic means we need to accomplish something.

The more our basic human means are absorbed by technology invention and use, the less those means are available for all things, not just technology.

We are not just technological beings. So far, we humans have seen ourselves to be about more than just technology. That we are technological beings is one aspect of our humanity. We are also social, cultural, or spiritual beings, and are intelligent in more ways than creating and using technology. If we do not pay attention – i.e. devote basic human means – to the other aspects that make up the human experience, then those aspects will increasingly be pushed aside by technology’s ascent and will gradually wither away.
 

Humanity’s variety
This trade-off concerns the variety of human cultures rather than how varied a particular culture or a human life is. The great variety of human cultures – e.g., the respective expressions of art or music, literature, festivals, ceremonies, spiritual / religious views, cuisines, architecture, or fashion – is a colorful and enriching feature of our species’ existence.

Advanced technology is science based and therefore, in principal, objective. The more our cultures saturate themselves with modern technology, the less cultural subjectivity there remains.

The more humanity submits to technology’s evolutionary logic, the less our cultures will be able to retain their distinctness and will therefore become increasingly alike. Technology’s evolution must only heed efficiency and functionality. These two criteria are based on the universal rules of physics and chemistry and are therefore objective. Culture is not objective; it is made of up of a myriad of idiosyncrasies. We can see cultures becoming more alike by e.g., how people dress, what they eat or read, the music listened to, or holidays celebrated. This has to do with globalization, which in turn has to do with the technologies enabling that development.
 
Degree of freedom
The third example of a basic trade-off in our relationship with technology has to do with how technology’s increasing supremacy influences our human degree of freedom.

As more aspects of our lives are enabled and defined by technology they become more standardized and transparent, lessening our degree of freedom. Standardization leads to fewer options, and therefore, to less choice and independence. Transparency of our lives leads to diminished privacy and more control.

These tendencies are noticeable through our information and communication technologies. The power of companies like Microsoft or Google (News - Alert) is a reflection of their technologies having become standard. Currently, we seem not too concerned with corporations and governments channeling our lives and gaining access to our thoughts and activities. But this apparent composure may be a sign of how dependent we have already become and therefore how difficult it is for us to question the realities we are so enmeshed in.

If we see diversity and freedom as valuable aspects of the human experience, then the basic trade-offs of fast and indiscriminate technological development must be considered. We are all called to think of how we can keep technology from flooding and completely defining our lives by being far more conscious and deliberate in our technology use.

About the Author

James Heim graduated with a master’s degree in economics from the University of Zurich and has worked with a Swiss foundation to bring technology companies to Switzerland. His work in this field, along with his close connection to nature, informed the research for his book Voluntary Enslavement: Technology’s Fast Development Reduces Diversity and Freedom.




Edited by Alicia Young
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