“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” — Christian Lous Lange
I love technology. As a Millennial, I am fully synced with all the gadgets and apps and love using them. It’s great. I’ve been immersed in this environment for almost two decades now and it’s basically part of my everyday life. However, I don’t know if it’s my age (yes — I’m getting old) or some other existential crisis I’m having, but I feel the technology we’re immersed in is just too much.
In my previous piece, I touched on how advertising revenues for some of Big Tech is in the tens of billions per year. Market capitalizations of some of the biggest tech companies are in the trillions, higher than the GDP of most countries! (On a side note, no company needs to get that big — surely there has to be checks in place! But that’s a debate for another day.)
It’s more the pervasive prevalence of technology in our days that’s a bit…scary, if I’m being honest.
I’ve started feeling like we just know too much. “Isn’t that a good thing?”, I hear my one reader ask. I thought so too, but why I do I feel like my brain is constantly at maximum capacity then? Why do I feel overwhelmed all the time? I feel like I have some thought or the other going through it and I just know too much about too many things in my life. I’d rather be in blissful ignorance! I’m not sure if humans are capable of handling so much information on a regular basis. We’re reading up for our work, then we read up on the news, we catch up on what others are doing on various social media, watch videos and TV shows which has more information. It’s just a lot. Apart from sleep, our brain is constantly consuming some sort of information or the other. When does it get time to rest and process?
On top of that, any sort of information can be obtained with a quick Google search. And that process is even more streamlined with Google Assistant. They want you to use the search engines and rely on them. The hamster wheel of information will only continue to increase. With the advent of AI, it will only be even more pervasive, if that is even possible.
Information is so easily accessible that I find it hard to just not have something going on in the background. I even find myself scrolling through Instagram while talking to my friends or family sometimes! It’s like I’m addicted to having my brain constantly absorb some information or the other. If I’m bored, I get this subconscious urge to go through social media and keep my brain busy by looking at random crap. My brain is probably more comfortable processing or absorbing information than not at this point!
However, I sometimes wonder if we need to know this much. Do we have too much information that it prevents us from processing stuff at our own pace? Does the information we have access to mean that we don’t feel the need to think about anything and try to come up with our own answers before asking the Internet? Is the information we’re consuming even useful? I for one, definitely feel like despite all the information I consume on a regular basis, it is no closer to helping me understand myself.
British anthropologist Robin Dunbar theorized that the cognitive limit to the number of people with whom we can maintain stable social relationships is 150, based on his studies of non-human primates. I have also read that back in the primitive days, our “caveman” brains were only capable of handling around 100–150 people because that was the approximate sizes of tribes back in those days, and so that was all that was needed for survival, in terms of social connection. And our brains have not really evolved drastically since.
With social media these days, an average person easily surpasses the Dunbar number. On paper, that sounds great! Within the palm of my hand lies a machine with which I can contact anyone around the world, at any time. But how valuable are these connections? How many can actually be counted upon and how many are actually close connections? It is easy to fall into the trap that we have a rich social circle just by looking at our followers count on Instagram or going through the likes on our posts on these platforms.
On top of that, the constant stream of information that we come across traps us in a false sense of confidence and security. We think we know a lot just because we come across a lot of stuff. It traps us by feeding our ego while preventing us from pausing and processing.
Whenever I search for something personal that I want to understand about myself or figure out, it is very easy to just search online for the answers. And with the instant gratification, I end up feeling like I am smarter because of coming across this possible solution. And so I use technology and the Internet again the next time I want to figure out something.
The question is, are they our answers? Do they actually apply to us? Do we need to know them? A lot of the times, we get instant responses to specific questions we seek — and we take them at face value. Sure, we can use an AI chatbot for a scientific or mathematical question and get accurate answers, but what if you’re asking something more personal? What if you’re Googling about a health or physical condition that you have? On paper, the solution might be the right one, but is that applicable to you?
Even doctors make the same mistake these days. We might go to a doctor because we have high blood pressure and they diagnose it as hypertension and prescribe you some pills. Sure, on the surface, that is a solution to a physical problem that a patient is having. But the true solution, the true root cause, is a singular answer that no doctor or even Google would be able to provide. Because that is very specific to you. The solution to high blood pressure is right there. Hypertension. Hyper. Tension. There is too much stress in the patient’s life. The solution is to reduce that. But where is the stress coming from? New job? Family? Spouse? Maybe you just moved to a new house and that is the cause of the stress. Or maybe you’ve succumbed to ennui at work but are not sure what the next step in life should be. It is very specific to you and that is the point.
It is easy to see how this can quickly build up — it can be applied to all seven areas of our lives and to a plethora of topics on a day-to-day basis. And we end up being none the wiser at the end of it.
What if you have a mental health problem?
What if you want to understand your relationship issues?
What if you want to be more aligned with yourself in your life? Google doesn’t know you. Sure, it knows your emails and preferences and locations and searches and even your favorite coffee shop that you like to visit on a Saturday morning, but it doesn’t know you.
That’s where technology gets a bit perilous, vicious and sinister. It creeps up on you.
You think you got the answer instantly, and you follow the advice it gives. Now you think you’re wiser because of it. And at the same time, you’re getting further away from knowing yourself, your true self. And because it’s rapid and you get instant gratification, you lean onto it the next time. And the next. And the next. And soon, you're an innocent fly caught in the spider’s web. The World Wide Web. So not only do we have this ignorant belief that we have all the answers in the palm of our hands, we’re also getting further away from actually knowing ourselves and being aligned with our values. It’s a double negative when we think we’re infact coming out positive. On top of that, because of the fact that we get our fix so quickly, it’s feels uncomfortable to be in the unknown. The not knowing. The uncertainty that fills your veins with a feeling of tingling restlessness, like a heroin addict begging for his next hit. Not fill our heads with all the possible solutions to a question that we want answered. Or distract ourselves with reels of cute puppies.
The solution to this, I think, is to let thoughts percolate in our heads more often. Be bored more often and let thoughts pass by. Not get instantly sucked into endless scrolling or reading the news or other information. Sit in the discomfort of not knowing. Not try to find a solution online immediately. Try to figure out internally why things happened the way it did. Or what you want or like in life. Try to get closer to your own interests and likes/dislikes. On your own. Without the metal slab that’s basically an extension of our hands. Be more mindful of your day to day activities. Trying out new things and not comparing with what others are doing. (Can you imagine a life now without Instagram?!) Not taking on identities that others have based on what you’ve seen them do online.
Meditation is a good way of unwinding. But technology is never going to go away. So even if we spend a lot of time meditating and clearing up our minds, we will still continue to use technology in all our lives. The key is to apply some thought to use it directly into your own life. Filter out things that don’t directly apply and internally think if using it will serve you positively. Have a internal check on whether the answer you’re getting from the web actually applies to you.
The longest journey you’ll ever make is from your head to your heart. — Sioux Legend
I think a little bit of ignorance would do us all a world of good. Be an idiot. Embrace not knowing. Admit to not knowing and sitting with the uncertainty.
vsan
