Domesticating Our Tech Monsters

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Depending upon your childhood and how nostalgic you are, chances are one of your memories will have some form of technology in it. Everything from the Radio to Television, from the Atari to the Xbox, from a room-sized computer to a watch that texts for you — technology has been a part of our lives forever.

Forever, I meant that.

Technology has been with humans since the beginning. Sure, it changes its face and how we relate to it — but it has been a tool that we have used since the beginning of humankind.

Everything from painting on walls to fire, from hunting tools to molding clay into bricks and the list goes on — technology is how we navigate, relate and adapt to our environment.

BUT, then we have the fearful, the naysayers. This is not to create division, but to expose how we have been conditiioned to react to things in our environment. It’s either a threat or it’s not — if its not, then we should worship it and create with it.

The binary opposition response forces us to choose one side over the other, rather than embrace a multiplicity of other responses. We could be completely neutral about technology in our lives. We could be sort of interested, but mostly disengaged — options abound. So, why are we sold a bag of lies, that technology is either good or bad and that we should fear it?

???FEAR, THREATS & CERTAINTY

Fear is something we feel as humans. But, evolution gave it to us as a way to manage threats in our environment. Did you catch that? A threat. Neurochemicals rush through our bodies when we perceive threats — its your body’s way of getting your ready to fight, flight or freeze. Depending on the groups that we identify with and their values have a massive influence on how we see things.

If our group doesn’t like technology, then we tend to stay away from it. Mainly, because we are hardwired to want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves — the fear of thar kind of loss is deeply existential. So, even if we are marginally curious about a new form of technology erupting on the scene, we will stay away.

Our groups? Yeah, those communities we spend time in. Our family, our church, our friend groups, and our community groups.?Research projects?show we let me believe for us. Also, there is something to be said about the need for certainty, and that’s why?binary thinking?works so well — its less for us to think about.

We’d rather someone else do the thinking and minimize the choice making process down to 2 choices over and above having so many others and risk entering into decision fatigue. It is our brains attempt to reduce how much work it would have to do if there were a plethora of choices.

Reduction is king, or queen!

By the way, this is not some boring philosophical claim about how ‘Big Brother’ is controlling access to our consumer choices — its true, but this is not the point here. There’s a?load of neuroscience?behind how much energy our body exerts in making decisions. It doesn’t like to waste energy. Your body is a waste management system — yes, I did just say that. It does it all it can to get reduce its output, but we can train it to do more.

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What do you think? Is fear inevitable? How should we see tech?