The idea of man becoming a slave to its culture is brought up in Rousseau’s Basic Writings, and is something we can still identify today through the evolution of technology today. We see it everywhere, in the way we navigate utilizing GPS, in our obsession with our phones, in our craze over social media, even in the way we pass our time utilizing a TV or video games. We are as Rousseau puts it “happy slaves” to technology. However, is our reliance on technology making us less human?
When we’re thinking about going out with friends or even on a date we usually rely on a trusty app to tell us where the nicest restaurant nearby is, and our GPS will tell us how to get there. Ratings on the restaurant give us an idea of what the restaurant will be like. However, these ratings are keeping us from constructing our own opinions. We’re merely relying on other’s opinions of what the restaurant is like and it will cause us to form a bias about what it is like when we do get there.
Our phones are another example of how we’re controlled. On our phones we keep our contact numbers, so many of us don’t bother to memorize anyone’s number because we already have it in our contacts. We also rely on our phone to communicate through texting and phone calls. However, this often keeps us from socializing with the people before us, since when we’re going on an outing with friends; a person in the group is often texting instead of paying attention. We even rely on our phones to do homework for example, if we don’t remember the definition to a certain term, we’ll look up the definition on our phones, relying on that rather than our own intellect.
Social Media is another example of how technology runs our lives. We are often influenced by the trends we see on sites such as Instagram or Facebook, such as using certain forms of slang because of the repetitive exposure to them. We also learn about all the celebrity gossip, which influences our opinions on certain people in a negative or positive way, rather than forming our own opinions. We also often get caught up in doing things such as utilizing Snap Chat to show our friends what we’re up to, taking our privacy in life away. The reason we utilize these social media sites is because many people utilize them so, we follow the crowd and do the same rather than being an individual.
The way we pass time has even been affected by technology. Many of us often resort to watching TV, or utilizing our laptop or tablet to use Netflix or something of the sort. We play video games and often become obsessed with these hobbies. Our obsessions often make us neglect our duties such as homework, studying or any other task we should be doing. TV even brainwashes us into buying certain things through repetitive commercials that claim that we need certain products. We often fall for the lure of infomercials.
Overall, we can conclude that we are slaves to technology, but are happy with the way things are since we have become so accustomed to it. We often depend on technology to form our ideas and to connect ourselves with the rest of society and its culture. However, is this necessarily a bad thing? Or should we be proud of how technology connects us?
jgdominion 