How Technology Is Hurting Us
Technology used to serve the purpose of human flourishing. No one would sit here and argue for example that the wheel was not a great invention, or any one of the “simple machines” or the written word. The combustion engine, airplanes, and ships have made travel easier than ever before in the history of mankind.
But now it appears that technology rather than helping people does nothing but create constant harm.
IVF, while created to help couples conceive desperately wanted children, is now used in some cases to “rent” women’s bodies via surrogacy, and children who are disabled are often abandoned. In particular, Ukraine’s surrogacy industry is rife with ethical concerns, and the war has caused many parents to unexpectedly abandon their children.
Even without the surrogates, mothers have even ended up with “the wrong Zygote” ie a child that is not her own, implanted in her uterus, which of course was a man-made horror that would never be possible had it not been for this technology. It’s unclear to me how many times this has happened, and I don’t think we’ll ever know without DNA testing each baby born with this technology.
Computers started off as a wonderful technology. The first computer was used to weave fabric in the 19th century, and the computers we think of today were used to help solve complex math problems. Now we have computers in our pocket in the form of smartphones, as well as sleek iPads.
But computers are now interfering with people’s ability to learn, and scientists are now encouraging schools to go back to pen and paper. I stopped taking notes by computer while in college and was called a dinosaur because I noticed I just didn’t learn the material as well, and quite frankly I’m glad I trusted my instincts.
There are entire videos on YouTube dedicated to people complaining about the rise of “IPad Kids” and the problems these devices are causing in Generation Alpha. It’s so bad that teachers are complaining that kids lack the pincher muscles in their hands necessary to hold pencils and pens.
Smartphones with their autocorrect feature have teachers also complaining that kids are not learning how to spell, and only one in five adults can pass a spelling test consisting of commonly used words such as “separate” and “necessary”. My chiropractor told me that he’s seeing patients younger and younger due to kids hunching their necks and staring at screens, this phenomenon is known as “tech neck.”
The internet, while being a wonderful tool to help further research and communicate across time zones, is now facilitating child predation, pornography, and gambling addictions, while social media lead mental health crises are used as an outright propaganda machine that hides controversial thoughts and promotes big businesses.
Google, which many Americans rely heavily on for research, will hide anything that it doesn’t want you to see. When I used Google to research controversial topics, results that were there yesterday would either be buried many pages into the search results or would outright “disappear”.
Google of course denies doing this, but a Wall Street Journal investigation found that Google has been manipulating search results as far back as 2019. Considering how much people use Google, the fact that this company has so much power to shape our opinions on various topics is frightening.
Social media is causing a mental health crisis amongst our youth and is heavily linked with anxiety and depression. Social media addiction, while not being in the DSM is apparent, after all, how many of us have taken “X breaks” for Lent and other reasons? And even without an addiction, between disturbing images and videos readily available to just overall a horrible attitude of bullying I’m curious if it’s affecting adults in the same manner.
And don’t even get me started about Facebook games. I’m embarrassed about how much time I have spent playing Township. Quite frankly I think I would be much happier and more productive if I just had a phone in the kitchen, or a flip phone, and just chucked the smartphone I’m typing this article on directly in the garbage.
And AI-generated art and written articles, who exactly asked for this? Did anyone complain that they didn’t want to produce art anymore, or write anymore? Why is open-source AI even here? What purpose does it actually serve?
We used to invent technology to do jobs that nobody actually wanted to do. In fact, most of our farming equipment was made to replace people picking fruits and vegetables, and cutting down wheat in fields because it was back-breaking labor that no one wanted to do. Now we have technology replacing jobs that people actually enjoy doing, art and writing.
And of course, it didn’t take long for men to use this new AI technology to start taking photographs of women and sometimes children and removing their clothes, essentially making deep fake pornography. I only post photographs from the neck up but I’m sure some gross degenerate somewhere is making porn of me as I write this.
Additionally, the technology we are getting when it doesn’t outright harm us appears subpar and uncreative. For example, I would love to be able to listen to a podcast and charge my phone at the same time, but Apple in its infinite wisdom decided that this was not necessary, in its “updated” phone.
Technology is a wonderful thing, there is no doubt about that: it has greatly improved the lives of the human race. But we have to face the facts that the technology we have is now harming us, and we have the power to stop it from damaging us if we choose to use this technology differently. I have no doubt we can also invent new technology that will solve world hunger, pollution, and other crises if only we focus on using technology to solve problems instead of creating them, or repeating the same old tired things.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
It’s crazy to think about the fact that for me, growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, getting to use the computer lab at school was a rare privilege! I went back to college for some classes in my late 20s and couldn’t believe how much things had already changed — I was the only student that didn’t take their notes on a laptop.
My daughter is only 18 months old but my husband and I talk about how we’re going to approach technology with her all of the time. We both work in tech, so it’s not like we can (or want to) become luddites. But I’m seeing how this next generation is already being affected and I refuse to participate.
A generation of anti social people as well .