Behind the Screens

Okay, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the question of whether technology makes our lives better, easier, happier, more fulfilled. The techie side of me wants to believe that technology helps us, takes us a step closer to a higher level of human endeavor. That’s the Star Trek side of me and it’s a very strong influence on my thinking, perhaps because I’ve been watching Gene Rodenberry’s beautiful vision of a better future for humanity since I was a very little girl (actually, since I was in utero, as my Mom devotedly watched first-run episodes of ST:TOS while pregnant with her eldest child). And Rodenberry’s vision was of a future in which technology enabled connection – warp drive spaceships and transporters propelled humans into new galaxies and onto new planets and, in the process, those humans met and, often befriended, the alien races that inhabited them. Technology literally brought humans (and humanoids) together.

However, anyone who knows science fiction knows that the Star Trek vision of the technologically advanced future is a utopian one, and there are plenty of dystopian visions that have long haunted those who imagine the future and its possibilities. I’m currently really caught up in Battlestar Galactica and that series’ central conflict – between humans and their rogue robot creations, the Cylons – embodies some longstanding fears regarding technological advances. The idea that our own technology might turn against us and consciously and methodically attempt to annihilate or enslave humanity is one that’s been at the heart of much fantasy and sci-fi and the question at the core of one of my favorite novels, Frankenstein. We have to be careful, lest we create monsters.

But robots and transporters and warp drives are all still but gleams in the eyes of dreamers. Our technology, while advanced, is still a long way away from being able to create an artificial intelligence capable of instigating genocide on the human race. Still, I think it’s worth asking what dangers lurk in our hard drives and how our ever-increasing dependence on technology is affecting our behavior and lives. That’s why I wanted to focus on technology for this writing class and it’s what is driving much of my own research. And, as someone who tends to have a positive and open-minded attitude toward technology, I find it necessary to make myself take the other side on occasion just to keep myself honest. Yes, technology is cool. It’s fun. If we keep at it, one day we’ll have those transporters and warp drives (okay, maybe I’ll draw the line at Cylons!) and our lives will be all shiny and wonderful just like in Star Trek. See, there I go again being optimistic. Time for a little healthy skepticism.

To that end, I’ve got a few articles that I came across over the last couple of weeks in the New York Times that raise some questions about some of our current uses of technology.

The first one, “E-Mail is Easy to Write (and to Misread),”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/jobs/07pre.html?em&ex=1192248000&en=15cb9ed482ae7136&ei=5087%0A showed up on October 7, 2007 in the Job Market section of the Times. I’ve long been concerned with the issue of e-mail as a communication tool and this article articulates some issues I’ve been talking to students about for some time.

The second, “Generation Q,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/opinion/10friedman.html?n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Thomas%20L%20Friedman was Thomas Friedman’s op-ed column on October 10. It’s not so much technology-oriented, but he suggests that what he sees as the passivity of current 20-somethings is at least partially enabled by the Internet. He makes the point that real activism requires us to engage with the real world, not the virtual one. Not sure how I feel about this – I certainly think there’s a vast sound of silence all across the country these days – but not just among 20-somethings. And I’m not convinced that online activism is impotent. But I’m intrigued enough to want to think more about this.

Finally, “The Fakebook Generation,”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9802E5DB1730F935A35753C1A9619C8B63&n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Contributors was a piece that appeared on October 6, 2007. The author, a recent Ivy League graduate, asks a great question about halfway into the piece about whether Facebook “enrich[es] adult relationships.” She’s right that those of us who use Facebook have been using it to essentially create these “stories” of our lives, narrating every event, momentous or not as if our lives depended on it. And yet, as she notes, it seems that this tool designed to bring people together has only “made us more wary of real human confrontation.” I wonder if that’s true. It seems I prefer to “talk” to people via computer than either on the phone or in RL. What does that say about me? About all of us who feel the same way?

In thinking about each of these articles and really pondering the disturbing questions they raise, I’m beginning to think that we hide behind the computer screen and we are becoming, not the brave and daring pioneers who man the USS Enterprise, rather we’re becoming cowardly, too afraid to face our own human fellows, much less new life and new civilizations. Are we burying our heads in electronic sand?