The Exploratory Essay Part 3

Part of understanding just what technology means is understanding that humans have a huge dependency on it. I found an interesting phrase that I think summarizes it well: “Technology is a drug, and society is addicted.” (Chisholm) As human progress continues to develop over time, so does our thirst for more technology that is better and more advanced than it was before. However, just because newer technology is more advanced, does that always necessarily make it better? As my source put it, “People like technology: we think it makes our lives easier, we think it is good for society as a whole, and we have been raised and educated in a society based on progress, development and the concept that technology is inherently good. We don't know to question it.” He goes on to make examples of technology that have been presented to society as great achievements, but have also displayed a handful of negative side effects: cigarettes, nuclear power, and even the Internet. Is our dependency on technology for better or for worse?

I believe that my source’s clever introspect on how technology changes our world has made me ponder the definition of technology even further. It seems that somewhere along the line, technology reached a point where survival was no longer the top priority; “the application of science” could be applied to fix just about anything, even if nothing was broken to begin with. My source cited the post modern artist Stelarc, who “proposes that the body and the mind of the average human is too weak to handle all the information in the modern world, and too fragile to withstand space travel. Technology…has transcended the human and made the body obsolete. His solution, surprisingly, is more technology. Making the body more powerful, more standardized…is the solution. If the body is really obsolete, why is it unthinkable that technology could be altered so that it did not make the human obsolete? The answer is that we see technology as all beneficent, unquestionable and the solution to everything.” This rather unnerving possibility shows exactly what I think may give technology a more negative connotation in the future than it has in the present day.