I don’t know about you but I can’t even keep up with the pace of technological change right now. Have you noticed that as soon as you see an advertisement or a friend shows you a new “app”, three minutes after purchase (if it takes that long) there is another better, more needed app that, well, appears. It used to be said that technology every two years would get twice as fast and twice as cheap. I have to believe this is dramatically speeding up. To this end, I believe that as we digitize the human experience, have even faster ability to satisfy cravings, fill “down time”, can purchase anything in nanoseconds and fulfill our minds and bodies with ‘things’ outside ourselves we gradually lose our ability to interact with people. Is it any wonder why leading people is getting more difficult?
It is said that one reason why pornography (whether you are for or against) is unhealthy is because it allows individuals to “put away” the object of desire at any moment. When two people are intimate, one person cannot discard the other like they could a magazine or the click to shut off a website. I think this same principle is being ‘forced’ (we individually choose however there is great inertia pushing) upon us with laptops, smart phones and tablets which is now impacting how humans interact, grow and slowly forget how to deal with situations and people that will not allow them to have what they want, when they want it. This doesn’t include the fact that our society is getting more punitive because mistakes of all sizes become gargantuan with social media.
So as we get more punitive, i.e. conflict, we continue to chip away at the human experience and the fundamental driver of business….relationships. People can make minor mistakes, like that young woman who had a party in Germany but forgot to send her invitation private and 1500 drunken teenagers arrived. Consider the individual who posts negative comments about a boss on Facebook or sends out a tweet that changes reputations and lives forever, in an instant. The individuals who don’t get mortgages or loans because of things they said on their accounts, the list goes on forever and has reached court in several states. This fact alone is proof of how much conflict is generated from oversharing and “fire and forget” emails and posts.
The way technology is being unleashed without education may be doing some real harm. We wouldn’t change the drinking age from 21 to 18 and not provide more education on drinking and driving. People are now digitally drinking and driving…posting things that often are too private for a personal journal. All of this access and time spent contributing (I do understand the positive aspects of social media and the issue does have a grey area) to digitizing the human experience, I believe, sets us up for more internal conflict, shorter attention span, unrealistic expectations for response times, decreased personal/professional reflection time (huge), decreased energy management, disconnect from the human experience, nature and if that wasn’t enough, exposure to unnecessary electronic waves that can’t be good for us. This doesn’t even include children, how they learn, communicate, connect and exchange social, interpersonal, non-digitized experiences.
Of course I have a cell phone. I realize that I am much happier when I use it to make calls and little more. We all have an app or two we like, appreciate instant ability to access thousands of emails, songs, information, movies and much, much more…I just wonder if we might have less conflict with our human counterparts if we didn’t spend so much time on these devices. What do you think?
All my best and much love!
Dave
Best Regards,
Dave
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