There’s no denying that technology has ushered some incredible conveniences into our lives. Instant communication with friends and loved ones, two-hour grocery delivery, and turn-by-turn navigation to just name a few.
I’ve been a sci-fi writer for a long time and a bonafide nerd from my earliest memory. It goes without saying that I’m a large proponent of tech but I also have a healthy fear of it. Our technology is growing faster than we can adapt to it. As a result of this, we must study our relationship with technology in hindsight to understand it. We must be diligent in trying to discover all of the ways in which technology is changing us. Our attention is being constantly splintered and fragmented to such a degree that it’s rewiring our brains.
"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity." ~ Albert Einstein
Our Greatest Addiction
Mobile phone addiction is epidemic, period. Everyone who owns one is probably addicted to a certain degree whether they want to admit it or not and now there’s no going back.
All it takes to come to this conclusion is to look around you when you’re in any public place. I can almost guarantee wherever you are you’ll see at least one person putting themselves and/or others at risk by walking, biking, or even driving a car while being hypnotized by their phones. It's very likely, you'll see more than one.
People habitually ignore one another in social situations, giving their phones top priority to anything or anyone around them. This will be one of the largest regrets of our time, not being more "in the moment."
I was at an outdoor concert recently and decided to give Facebook Live a try for the first time so I could share my experience with my friends on social media. I went “live” and immediately the views and likes started rolling in triggering a flow of happiness chemicals in my brain.
All of a sudden I became absorbed in trying to get a good clear shot of the band and keeping my phone stable so the video feed wasn’t shaky. Then it struck me...I was more concerned with capturing a quality video than I was listening to the band. I stopped broadcasting...immediately. I asked myself who am I living for, me or my social media followers?
I see so many people in public and on social media using their devices as a mobile production studio to try to capture the moment or even create a fictitious or alternative version of their own life and reality. My philosophy is normally do what you want as long as you’re not harming anyone else but realize that you may be harming yourself and/or limiting your own potential.
Time Is Precious
Life passes us by in the blink of an eye. There are so many distractions these days. At any given moment we’re bombarded with stimuli, in the real world and the virtual one, that scream for our attention.
It's interesting to think of the real world as if it operated like Steemit. Our attention is like our own personal "upvote" that we can give to the things and people around us that we feel enrich our lives.
Thankfully we still have full control of our personal upvote. We have complete freedom to decide how we spend minutes, hours, and days of our lives. I think Einstein would agree, there's a symbiotic relationship between our happiness and making balanced choices. We continually write the chapters that make up the book of our lives and, to a large degree, we decide whether our book will be shelved in the dystopian or utopian sections.
It’s always so important to ask yourself…Who am I living for?
As always, thank you for reading.
Eric Vance Walton
(Gifs sourced from Giphy.com)
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You are right - the middle path is the way to go. It is in balancing the scales that our salvation lies. As @sultnpapper hints, how many times have we virtually wiped ourselves from the greater biome by our technology having "exceeded our humanity"?
Can we succeed this time round in applying technology to help us overcome the evil of egocentric greed? Can we use it to achieve the perfect balance between security of life and the advantages of social capital? Will securing life by decentralizing power be the key to an earthly heaven?
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I can't help but think that you are absolutely correct, when you say our technology is growing faster than we can adapt to it.
People don't take into consideration just how many radio waves our bodies are encountering daily and what is the long term affect this constant bombardment on our physical bodies will be.
It maybe that all these millions of wireless communication devices that are in use all around the world may be what does us in from a health aspect, and we give them to kids as young as two; a phone to keep them entertained so the parents don't have to actually interact with their kids. I saw that exact situation the other morning at breakfast in the hotel I was staying at, I am guessing two would have been generous on the age, maybe 18 months old.
Cancer in children is at an all time high right now , could it be related? Of course it could, but it might never be known until another 40 or 50 years.
Our bodies were designed to actually heal themselves when injured, but there has to come apoint where they body just says "screw it" I am fighting a loosing battle. I don't think physically our bodies can change fast enough to make the corrections for all that it is being attack by.
GMO foods is another one to go along with the waves.
It might also explain what may have happened to the advanced civilizations that inhabited this earth before us. To much, to fast.
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You make a great point with Wifi and cellular signals. One study in particular that was pretty damning for cell phone usage was conducted in Sweden (http://www.bioinitiative.org/report/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Final-NTP-press-revision.pdf). The people and corporations making piles of cash from this technology would cringe if the public was actually paying attention but at this point people are so addicted it may not even matter.
I'm hearing Wifi signals are equally as dangerous and GMOs, forget about it. GMOs may go down as the worse idea in human history. The extent to which corporations have control of the regulating and governing bodies that are supposed to protect consumers and citizens is the root of the problem. Until we sever that connection things will only continue to get worse. Thanks for the comment, @sultnpapper!
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Thanks for the link to that study, I read it and find it very interesting . My guess is that since there probably isn't any major cellular phone manufacturers based in Sweden that I know this might be a factual unbiased study that really shows that there is a link as I suspected.
One of the most revealing things about this paper was towards the bottom, were it talked about the amounts of studies and the % increase being shown in the years study by study. That makes perfect sense since the increase in more cellular devices each year.
Also that they are now seeing signs in the DNA that can be attributed to this is even more frightening since that damage would not be able to be reversed would be my guess.
We are self destructing all for the sake of convenience, is it possible this has already taken place before? There sure seems to evidence that it has or at least that it may have a long time ago. To much stuff that we don't even have the capability to replicate today exists as ancient ruins and archives and so they may have done something similar in their day and age.
Could be we are repeating history without even knowing it.
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Eww ..so well written, I enjoyed every word. @ericvancewalton you are right on with this post. My husband calls people walking around with their eyes glued to their phones digital heads.
When we are out together we point it out, there goes a digital head.
We even see people out in nature at the park with their children that are digital heads. What kind of memories are they creating?
Tip! .10 ❤️ I want another post like this from you. :) Or similar, hope you know what I mean.
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Thank you! Digital heads, I like it! I think they outnumber regular humans now. : ) I've seen the scenario you describe in the park. I've seen children trying hard to get their parent's attention but the parent is glued to the screen. So sad, what message does this send to children?
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I agree .. I bet you therapist have to tell parents to look at their children instead of the phone.
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I can remember when I was young and there were no personal computers and I played with sticks. I don't miss it. My first computer was fantastic. It is important to find time to spend time with friends in person, but the world will never go back to the way it was. Because the past was incredibly boring.
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I grew up in the 70's and computers were just making their way into the average household and life was definitely different. My first PC was a Tandy and I learned to code so I could create a pixelated stick figure that walked across the screen. Life was so much slower then but I was never bored. I spent much of my childhood outside playing and developing my imagination, which turned out to serve me well later in life. You're so right that the world will never go back but I'm happy I got to experience both worlds because there were huge pluses and minuses in both.
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We have to pay a lot of attention to this issue, because we are becoming more and more addicted to technology and our phones, and the worst part is that we don't even realize it. As the advances are always innovating, I think this will never end and the times of before where the fun, enjoy the outdoors, all that will never come back.
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Excellent article here @ericvancewalton. I hope you both don’t mind me dropping a line on this page. It’s just that @gustavoadolfodca specially asked my opinion in a drawing I did a few weeks ago and I answered him in a post I did yesterday. He isn’t following and I didn’t want him to miss it.
Thanks again for allowing my interruption.
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All parts are amazing, but the point of my eye is focused on your quote.
The technology really cannot be dammed along with the increasingly complex needs of life and human intelligence itself, which is sometimes not balanced between expectations and reality, which is very worrying.
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Interesting and true what you just said. @ericvancewalton. In the age of telecommunications, ironically, we don't know how to communicate. I see with great concern people who, behind a screen, are bold and outgoing, and in real life become asocial beings. In fact, studies have explained that the more withdrawn, the stronger the negative thoughts are. The idea is not to turn your back on technology, but to keep your balance, to know when to disconnect. Knowing that technology can be an ally, but also your enemy. Fröhlicher Freitag
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You watched the Matrix movie. Real life in a virtual world. Is not logic the same?
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I've always disliked people who're waving their phones at concerts, always filming, going live on some app or other...They're not enjoying the moment and they're blocking my view and I would very much like to enjoy the moment.
I'm very serious about music and my reasoning is 'if it was important to X to see this band, he would be here,' I'm not going to miss out just to get a couple of likes. Ain't worth it.
You're right, we're so caught up in our little screens and we think it's worth it 'cause we use them to talk to people, after all. It's not.
Love this. And the Hardfork picture, really nice.
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This is beautiful, the truth in totality, we have all these technology and science as a liberating factor, what aids mankind in life activities but becoming too engrossed in it is really a diesease, so many human relationship and interaction has stalled and even become broken nonetheless. However humanity is humanity we're a product of our failings.
Beautifully written my friend.
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Great write up. I totally agree with you and glad to see more people that feel the same way about the technology but especially about the phones, which really do steal our life, since like you said, sometimes when taking a picture or a video we are more concerned about the shot and they don't enjoy the moment.
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This is a great discussion. I walk a fine balance between technology and nature but I'm finding technology is sooo important for us. The key here is mindfulness. If we can mindfully use technology without become zombies, we can thrive.
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What if i tell you the addiction to phone has been seen before it was first introduved to the market, am serious. The first test was the TV, the mother of all addiction.
Am also addicted to a point, i wont deny it and as far as i know there isnt any cure yet of the Phone Addiction Virus(PAV). But only if we will look at the humanity next to us, that is if the humans next to us isn't pressing a phone too.
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Me gusto tu artículo, es una gran realidad que se esta viviendo en muchos países desarrollados y en vía de desarrollo, yo vivo en Venezuela, mis amigos, compañeros de trabajo son mas sociables por redes sociales aveces que en persona, y conozco personas que no duran ni un día sin dejar de utilizar su teléfono pero estamos a veces tan absortos por la tecnología que no apreciamos lo que nos rodea, ya sea la televisión, teléfono, radio nos privamos de verdaderos momentos en familia, de apreciar la naturaleza y descubrir muchas cosas.
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Very good written. Human is a creator of technology. But now human is a slave of technology .
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Peoples lives for social media . It is a bitter truth nowadays . While journey , peoples not enjoy their journey without facebook live .
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Yeah anyone that denies the phone addiction is in denial. What’s crazy to me is that it wasn’t long ago at all that it wasn’t a thing...
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Soul is Creator of this humans body and becomes slave of body by forgets ourself. same happening with technology and human.
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Well there is a life beyond tech which is yet to be explored we got lost somewhere in it
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Once upon a time human needed technology very badly and that leads to the modern era of great technological revolutions and now the same technology is making the human being paranoid and the humans just want to live stress free live, human wants to run away in the pursuit of peace and a normal and natural life.
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Hi @ericvancewalton! You have received 0.1 SBD tip from @rebeccabe!
@tipU voting service | For investors.
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Thanks a lot, this is very informative. There are humans in this platform pretending to provide information and click on-baiting customers. But this put up honestly packs a punch with all this information. well played sir.
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I love this
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That's true you have pointed a very good point mobile has changed our life in both ways good and bad if i talk about good way is simply we can do anything by mobile we can talk we can chat we can entertain our self and other but on the other side it also creating space between relationships we are not able to give a proper time to our family that is unfair.
Very nice post i really appreciate your post
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