Losing Our Humanity

Are you getting tired of all the technology in our lives? Had enough? I have. Well, I had enough long ago and abstain from most of it apart from my computer. The thing I like about the computer is that I bother no one else with it, as I have a desktop that I use in privacy. Still, I know I use my computer too much.  But unlike the desktop, so much of the other new technology we are given the opportunity to use is used annoyingly in public. It makes those devices so much worse.  And just today I have read that those people without secure connections on their computer are being victimized by hackers who can hack a private connection to spy on a person (through the victim's computer camera) or even unlock front doors remotely to make it easy to burglarize their home.

I keep hearing, but never have believed, the old adage that computers are freeing time for us to do other things. Right...... but unfortunately those other things are to access even more technological devices and be more stressed and alienated by them. What happened to the pre computer days free time in which we just sat on the front porch and watched life unfold naturally? Too, I suspect we got as much done in those days as we do now. Now, we are frantically on our devices spending hour after hour accomplishing nothing, doing nothing of value but pretending to.

If being "connected" to computers is your idea of a meaningful life you may not be in the minority.  But is that depth or just fun and convenience? I do believe computers are making us lazier, less willing to do many ordinary things ourselves, the things that used to define us. How many times do we hear today that hard work is a positive value? Not very often. We seem to want to take shortcuts (like those computer shortcuts we adore) in so many things in our lives, even in our personal relationships.  The man or woman who tweets "I'm done with this relationship! Good Luck." as away of breaking a romance is not a rarity. The teenager who is locked onto his or her computer screen every night while ignoring mom and dad is not an aberration. And on and on......

What bothers me about all of this is the fact that so many of us don't realize how we have become addicted to and are prisoners of our technology. We are their slaves and yet don't know it. It may be hyperbole to suggest that we are losing our humanity to the machines, but a few have and many more will in the days ahead. It's enough to make me want to give my computer a good swift kick!