A modern day anti-technology manifesto

Before I get into writing about things like social contracts, behavioural economics and good old corruption in politics I wanted to share my view on technology. I’m not a fan. I prefer a flip phone to a smartphone, no TV to a smart TV and a paper book to a digital one. On that subject, the 5 most valuable global brands are now technology companies, compared to just one 10 years ago (poor old Microsoft).

Look, we all benefit from technological advances, no doubt about it but the society hasn’t quite changed for the best. As a species we are becoming less human, folks always staring into their phone screens unable to generate an authentic conversation or sustain an attention span of longer than 280 characters (no, I don’t have Twitter). I used to walk up to every girl on public transit who was reading a book. Yes, you guessed it, it didn’t happen too often. Invention of the Blackberry phone was probably the most detrimental thing that happened to work/life balance. Like ever. Don’t even get me started on social media. Guys from Social Media Today put this interesting piece together suggesting that “total time spent on social media beats time spent eating and drinking, socializing, and grooming.”

I will not talk about cybersecurity, amount of our personal data controlled by corporations, net neutrality, etc. That’s beyond my area of expertise. As a side note though, have a look at what China is doing with their social credit system via Wired. Now that’s some scary stuff.

In my introduction I promised a little bit of sports talk in my articles. Remember the Lance Armstrong story? It took the world doping agency several years to develop a drug test for EPO and just a couple of weeks for teams’ doctors to figure out a way to circumvent the test. Technology is sort of like doping. It gives those who have access a small advantage and very effectively blurs the line between innovation and morality. From a slightly different angle, it has been shown through multiple studies that kids’ participation in sports has major benefits. Involvement in sports helps develop and improve cognitive skills, affects such qualities as leadership and increases opportunities for a better life. It’s much harder to get kids involved when they get an iPad at age 6 and spend countless hours playing video games in front of a TV. Obesity rates among kids are insane and according to one of the studies “getting people active could save the global economy nearly $68 billion annually in medical costs and productivity”.

What I’m trying to say is that while technology is most likely the future of humanity, we do need to be cautious. Perhaps go old school every now and then, do what we used to decades ago. Maybe spend a bit more time being human, genuinely engaging with each other and doing some exercise (yeah, that’s right). If we don’t maybe this picture from WALL-E will become our reality.