Are we smarter or dumber than before, Siri?
For a
long time people have thought of information as being a destination; you had to
go to a book, you had to go to a library.
But now, with new mobile and wireless technologies, information is
turning into a struggle to separate the meaningful
from the meaningless. Or like they have been
saying we are forced receiving a mind control that we are deprived of raw
curiosity & being fed with massive processed information, that is at the
same time, incredibly addictive?
Can
you even recall a time when you didn't "Google?" And now anyone with half a brain can answer all those big
questions without really knowing why.
Can
you even recall a time when you didn’t know what it means to “unfriend”
someone? And Facebook allows people from past lives to
suddenly pop up, wanting to be your friend. And in five years time we will see “Government Warning: Privacy Concern is none of your business because you
choose to have your private life on display” foot-noted in every site.
IT departments across the globe have blocked the site, which has
also been criticized for taking up too much of worker’s time. And we have been texting too much
unnecessary words and taking too much unwanted photos from our palm-sized
devices that fits in the pocket.
Are
they meant to improve, or confuse our daily lives? All
these have changed the way we communicate
and made us think about what it means to be a modern human being. And then we "Google" it again!
Are we
becoming smarter when mobile apps let us do everything from playing games to
finding public restrooms?
We even have ideas like The Sixth Sense Project
at the MIT Media Lab, which uses a wearable gestural interface that augments
the physical world around us with digital information and let us use natural
hand gestures to interact with that information. I am a conservative therefore I believe that sixth sense is
developed and awakened through spiritual practice and I don’t want myself to
wear like my illustration in order to tune into this world!
Are we
smarter, or dumber than before, Siri?
My column illustration titled "Not Every Tech Is A Blessing" | February 2012
