Theory of Knowledge - Journal 1
A few weeks ago I heard something on the radio that I found disturbing. I got in my car and just caught the end of a program on NPR that was talking about new developments in technology. Devices and microchips that would have the ability to function when embedded under the skin. On NPR they talked about how a chip could be inserted into the tongue that would allow us to change the way our food tastes, or how LED lights could be embedded in the scalp and along with computer like chips would allow for live status updates and other forms of social media to be broadcasted in a bubble like image above the head. This sounded like they were analyzing a sci-fi novel, not talking about new breakthroughs in modern day technology. But the next thing that was announced on the radio was that scientists have now made an LED light no more than 3 atoms wide. Sitting in the car I suddenly had a flash forward. I was a mom, I was driving and my teenage child was sitting in the front seat. I had no way of communicating with her directly, everything was through technology. I didn't know my own child. I pictured a futuristic post apocalyptic world where humans paid no attention to the destruction around them because they were so engrossed in themselves. They saw the world through eyes programmed to see what only they wanted to see and hear. My next thought was, I need to start a revolution. Humans have created so many ways of communicating that it is starting to work backwards. How many people take the time to sit down, turn off their phones, and just have a conversation with a person face to face? Not many, and the number just seems to be getting smaller. I am choreographing Seussical at Silver Lake and today at rehearsal I turned around to call a few cast members up on stage. Every single cast member who wasn't actively participating onstage was engaged in some electronic device. Phones, ipads, tablets, laptops and kindles. No one was communicating with a person sitting right next to them. Now I am guilty of using my phone in class, and have texted friends while I was spending time with another friend, but I try to be aware of when I am on my phone and give my attention to the person across from me. This is what separates me from the younger generation. The middle schoolers live in a world where it is completely acceptable to be engaged in a device and not in a person. I am still aware that this is rude. This goes over their heads. This scares me. The next generation will have a stronger relationship with their phone, then with their friends. The effect this would have on the world and society is huge. Say embeddables become real. Humans would lose the most important quality that makes us human. Our ability to connect to another being through emotion. We would become selfish machines, and this would ultimately lead to destruction. Without a care for others or the world around us, people would do anything to get what they want. I believe a sense of morals would be lost. So I end with a new question, as things in TOK usually do, and the question is this. Does technology have the ability to eliminate the humanity within us?
