Thoughts on technology and human evolution.

Smartphones these days seem to be a requirement in order to be a human being.

My work are requiring me to download an app which I can't and won't do. I was asked a few years ago to become part of a work whatsapp group. I was indirectly made to feel I wasn't part of the team bease i couldnt and didnt want to be in it. Last night, instead of looking my name up on a computer for a ticket, a "box office assistant" made the person I was with re-download an app to get an e-ticket with an animated barcode. I know my stubbornness is making me technologically illiterate but I don't care.

We started becoming machines during the industrial revolution. Today we continue to advance toward this. It's part of our evolution as we get further away from who we were.

  • Are you suggesting a new moniker!?

    You could be offline_spoons I suppose.

  • But I see my peers not feeling as strongly as I do about it, they seem less defiant and are more willing to embrace it.

    I get this, but to quote Debbie, "nostalga isn't what it used to be".

    We had a very different perspective on life back then - less cluttered with experience and nuance, more black and white and undulled by the erosion of age.

    Memory is also not what it was - we forget the issues that surrounded us (the peer pressures, FOMO, being under the heel of schoolteachers, parents and even older siblings / babysitters).

    Then again in todays society the controls are much more pervasive. Big brother is always watching (especially online) and we are monitored all the time through our mobile devices, CCTV and ANPR systems or even the cars we drive tracking our movements / speeds / braking etc.

    It is no wonder people today feel blunted by lack of control and the constant manipulation of their opinions through the echo chamber of social media and news feeds tailored to their interests.

  • I agree. I am fully aware as one gets older "things were better back in my day" and there is this element behind my opinions also.. But I see my peers not feeling as strongly as I do about it, they seem less defiant and are more willing to embrace it. I don't see this as a problem,  just an observation.

  • Are you suggesting a new moniker!?

  • Thank you spam bots for deleting my twice edited post.

    It isn't the spam bot - it is the AI selectively editing you out of existence...

  • Alas, however, I see kids in electric scooters when driving to the village shop, and back, part of me dies inside.

    Well 40+ years ago I was one of those kids on a skateboard doing just that and probably making my grandparents generation die a little on the inside.

    It is nothing new, just a variation on the evolution of society.

  • Thank you spam bots for deleting my twice edited post.

  • Some variant of the Matrix seems inevitable and will probably be done willingly by future generations

    Which as humans we are being prepared for now without realising. It appears to make life more convenient for many. We will wonder one day how it all happened. Its bigger than all of us and is "just the way things are" but whether I agree with it or not, it cannot be stopped as it is evolution. I suppose we are at such a small point in humanity there will be and have been many years of going through this transitional period. 

  • Thank God I live in the Sticks.

    Alas, however, I see kids in electric scooters when driving to the village shop, and back, part of me dies inside.

  • It is easy to see the change in human generation by looking at the generational behaviour differences.

    Gen X were mostly adults when computers first started to become widespread so learned to use these to suppliment their already established life patterns but mostly have the ability to pick up a phone / tablet / laptop to do something then put it down and go off to do something more conventional.

    Millenials grew up with mobile technology as a child and as adults grew familiar with smart phones / tablets and embraced these but still were able to put them down fairly easily.

    Gen Z grew up on mobile phones & tablets and they have known this technology almost from birth and they seem inseperable from it. They suffer much worse from addictive behaviour and mental health issues than previous generations.

    Future generations are likely to grow up even more integrated thanks the technologies like virtual reality and are getting closer to being constantly plugged into the matrix, and it is quite possible to see a few generations down the line that person-to-person contact will die away altogether in favour of high definitial virtual interactions that can supply instant gratification and take care of all out needs.

    Some variant of the Matrix seems inevitable and will probably be done willingly by future generations, led by autists who can't deal with IRL interactions I expect.

    That is all assuming that AI does not evolve to sentience and realise what a useless bunch Humanity is and sets about getting rid of us as soon as it is able to be self sufficient.

  • If you're doing things that are more inconvenient for you (printing tickets, getting money from a cash machine and carrying it around), aren't you opting out of being served by technology? 

    I could think of a hundred ways my life is made more convenient by newish technology in any week, but I'd struggle to come up with even a small handful of ways it goes the other way round. 

  • It should be the objective of technology to serve mankind, not the other way round

    Yes there are many ways the development in tech is helping humans. There is good! I'm thinking here along the terms of healthcare treatment for example, so not necessarily smartphone related. 

  • It should be the objective of technology to serve mankind, not the other way round.

    I am still able to print out E-Tickets. There is still the option. However, the Numpties use the phone for everything.

    Admittedly, I spend most of my free time browsing the internet on my phone. However, I pay everything in cash; whenever I'm outside shopping. I only pay by card online.

    It all went pear shaped after Steve Jobs died.

  • There are some great things but I'm talking more about how technology seems to be increasingly becoming a prerequisite to just do normal stuff like get paid a wage. 

    who we were

    Depends what "were" means to you.

    I'm aware, for instance, there is technology which is "normal" to me that wouldn't have been such to people of previous generations, I can see it is all relative. I suppose I've had in mind what some other threads have been about today and my own recent frustrations. 

  • I'm not sure who we were was that great really. 

    I love my phone. If having an infinite source of music, information and anxiety survival tools in a small rectangle in my pocket is bad then I don't really want good. I certainly don't miss having to sit in front of a computer to post on forums like this one. 

  • Welcome to the human race lol XD

    Awful isn't it

    I see people using their phones for everything now. I've seen people pay for there shopping with there phones my neighbour even arms his car alarm with his phone :/ 

    People are very dependent on them personally I really dislike phones I prefer using my laptop

    My GP surgery has an app which is really annoying. Not everyone likes using phones for everything but they seem to think we do

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