At what point does someone become so dependent on technology that in our world of instantaneous feedback we forget the virtues of patience and personal cultivation?
We live in an era where cell phones, PDA’s and MP3 players are always within a finger’s reach and our dependency on these technological gadgets are such that we rely on them to communicate or entertain with one another.
In essence we’ve turned into a “Microwave Generation”, which can be explained in two parts; one, that our reliance on technology has become so “all consuming” and commonplace that without it we’d be in a state of shock and two, we as human beings want everything now (59 seconds or less it seems). Look around you, there’s a “fast, quick, instant, speedy” service to just about anything you can think of including espressos, fast food, medical checkups and oil changes.
I had a brief discussion about this with Matt Burris and Bryan Veloso who both had their own opinions to share.
Matt Burris:
There are consequences to everything, including trying to make our lives easier. In essence, we’re being weakened, and if we had an event that wiped out electricity in the world, lots of people would die because they wouldn’t be able to fit into the whole survival of the fittest theory anymore, which wouldn’t be applicable because we rely too much on so many things to make our lives easier.
Our survival instinct has been dulled to the point where it isn’t there anymore. When the tsunami raced towards Southeast Asia, the birds and animals, even those in the zoo, went towards higher grounds before it even hit. Yet humans didn’t detect something wrong. However, native tribes with none of the [modern conveniences] we have, knew about and had prepared for the tsunami before it hit. They knew because they still have that instinct.
If you put a man from the 16th century next to a man in today’s age in nature, the man from the 16th century would fare a lot better than the modern man.
Bryan Veloso (in response to the above):
That makes too many assumptions. Also, a 16th century man has a shorter life span, and lower literacy rate and a higher chance of getting diseases. Sure they MAY have been able to outlast somebody from today in the wild but we all have that instinct that is activated when needed.
What do you think?
This isn’t anything new, but lately I’ve been noticing more car talking going on out there in the world of traffic. Car talking (or chatting), whichever you prefer, is when two vehicles pull close to the center of the road and the drivers briefly engage in conversation about a topic which requires hogging of the road.