Machines V Human Beings
on February 1, 2019 at 10:05 am
I entered a restaurant and took a table. What struck me was how quiet things seemed—until I realized that few diners were actually having conversations with each other. Their heads were lowered, faces expressionless, completely consumed in electronic devices ranging from iPhones to games. They more resembled robots, machines, rather than living human beings.
As a kid, I, my parents, my brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles—everyone—congregated at our grandparents’ farmhouse where the “old folks” sat around outside underneath the stars and related stories and tales of their lives. Kids ran and played, chased fireflies, shouted and laughed. It’s called interacting.
Contrast that to the modern era of machines and electronic devices.
A new scourge has taken root in society. An addiction to devices and machines that is destroying human potential in a variety of ways. An entire social world has been built around them, with a language of grunts and signs reminiscent of the Neanderthal period. U there dude? LOL. LMAO.
Huh?
Machines have gone from servants to masters. Once people become dependent on them, they can never go back. Machines have revved up life’s treadmill and made our days more anxious and agitated. The art of communication has been largely destroyed, along with the ability to concentrate. Reading, which requires concentration, for example, is leading to “the end of books.” It’s easier and faster, and requires less thought and concentration, to simply “google it.”
Most millennials say they had rather text each other than actually talk face to face. An emoji, they say, is more meaningful than words. In days gone by and now buried by technological “progress,” people like my family who lived in the mountains were far less lonely. We didn’t even have a telephone.
Today, hooked on “devices” of one form or another, we hang distracted like flies on a web of technology. Studies reveal that the tech generation is the loneliest generation in history. The International Classification of Diseases has formally designated this obsession with devices as a psychological addiction that alters behavior and rewires neural pathways to mimic being hooked on drugs, alcohol or gambling.
As a result of constant exposure to tech and social media, an eighth-grader’s risk for depression jumps 27 percent. “Devices” are blamed for a teen suicide rates in the U.S. that now eclipses the homicide rate. An Austrian designer invented a “substitute phone” to help frequent smartphone users cope with withdrawal symptoms by providing physical stimulation as a substitute for device usage—and perhaps return a sense of reality.
Two of the biggest tech figures in recent history—Bill Gates and Steve Job—seldom let their own kids play with the very products they helped create. That in itself should be a warning.
Not long ago, I did a two-hour interview with BBC-London on what lies ahead in technology: Spyware to keep constant track on every individual on the planet, robots with artificial human intelligence (AHI) that replicates the human mind, that can actually reason, think and feel, including self-awareness and the instincts of self-survival. People first become dependent on the machines they create. Then, they make machines that think and have the power to control their creators. This is no longer science fiction; it’s a recipe for disaster.
Charles W. Sasser is a historian and author of over 60 books. His latest is CRUSHING THE COLLECTIVE: AMERICA’S LAST CHANCE TO REMAIN FREE AND SELF-GOVERNING. Available at book stores, and Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com.
Sad but true we must not let this happen great article by the way
Hey, Dan. Thank you. See you Sunday at Sunday school. chuck sasser
Life was more fun when we would sit in the yard after dark and the adults would smoke to keep misquotes away. And we could actually se stars and smell stuff growing in the yard and beyond. And later hehe I drove across the State of Oklahoma as part of my wok (no air conditioning so the window was down and we got sunburnt) and the weather report was what the newspaper editor thought he saw just before going to press, so we would run into snow or ice when it was a pretty day when we started. Keep up your good work, Chuck.
Hey, Jim. Thanks. It’s not that the “good ol’ days” were better; it’s just that they were more HUMAN. God bless. Chuck Sasser
Amen pal.
Thanks you, Steve. Take care of yourself. chuck sasser
Great article. Truer words were never spoken through falser teeth. LMAO…
Or, Jim. . . Perhaps through NO TEETH AT ALL? Hope to see you at TNW this month. chuck sasser
I too miss the days when parents and grandparents sat on the porch and told stories while children played. But I also appreciate some of the new technology. Email keeps me in touch with my sisters in Cushing and Stillwater on at least a weekly basis. So much easier than regular mail and even phone calls. It keeps me in touch with friends too and relatives all over the country.. And I like being able to keep my phone with me.
It allows me to take on-line college classes on astronomy–a subject that has always fascinated me–and send poems to various magazines. Allowed me to watch Murray win Wimbledon although I didn’t have cable. Nothing relaxes me before bed as much as a game of solitaire. It also allows me to read Chuck’s articles.
Science and technology are only as good as the people who create and use them. Kind of like guns and atom bombs. But the potential harm that could come from these new technologies is certainly something we need to be constantly on guard against.
Morning, Carol. And you’re right–with technology used properly and prudently. It’s the total obsession with it–that kids as young at 4 years old have smart phones and never go anywhere without them, etc. . . that is creating a dystopian society in which we are unable to think for ourselves. Oh, well. . . Just a thought. I hope you are doing well, my friend. God bless. chuck sasser
The technosphere so many young people live in is largely responsible for the sharp rise in suicide within this group. I believe most of the gaming, regardless of the age group targeted, is designed to be subliminally addictive. Where is the parenting? If you depend on the “village to raise a child” it will deliver a substandard human.
lAnd, Jim–a substandard society on the decline. and you’re right, everyone is beginning to see the addiction when Kindergarten kids spend average of 6 hours day playing with their devices. That’s insane–of the parents for permitting it. I even restricted TV for my sons–and one is now a medical doctor, one an editor of a major newspaper, and the other working on his master’s and doctorate. I always explained that I wanted my sons to be participants in life, not spectators. God bless you, Jim. chuck sasser
Right on, as always, Chuck, and so well said.
Quite an impressive group you’ve got there, Chuck! Good thoughts!
Hello Chuck
Just so you would have a respondent that wasn’t named Jim, I think you’re on to something, or is that on something?
Hope to see you soon my old friend.