Technoculture Is Robbing Us Blind

There is no denying the all pervasive and ubiquitous influence of technology in our everyday life. All key facets of life today: food, travel, communication, and entertainment -possess a deep imprint of technology; sometimes a little too much for some people’s comfort (yours truly included!)! After all, why on the earth would you want to advertise some of the most pristine and wonderful experiences of your life on social media?

Even as a millennial teenager and with the risk of being ostracized on all the social media platforms- I do occasionally feel that some of our elders and seniors were much better off as they lived their life “in the moment”. Whenever they encountered a moment of extreme natural beauty, be it when they went on their first date with all the nervous excitement or when they had a reunion with old friends -they were there- “in the moment”, and lived it.

In this contemporary world, a lot of us just choose to lose the moment by falling slave to the lure of capturing the moment for posterity in our fancy digicams or recording it for the benefit of others on social media pages.

The new brand of “technoculture” does not stop at just lost moments and self-created invasions of your own privacy. It’s actually fostering a very spontaneous and judgmental culture where opinions are formed in an instant, and people are castigated or “trolled”, as we call it in the language of this technoculture for as little as voicing their thoughts which might not resonate with yours.

There is no tolerance in this culture and if you happen to be a public figure, then very little room for “mediocrity”.

Past performances or feats can drown overnight through carefully constructed and often malicious and fabricated “fake stories “, that have the potential of ruining an entire career, and sometimes even an entire life. Never to be left behind in espousing this new way of life, our great “netas” have taken this to a whole new level . Now we have political parties having well laid out technological interventions and social media “campaigns”.

Nothing wrong with that, you might think-except that they are almost always driven by a malicious intent of pulling a rival person or party down, rather than focusing on an issue based campaign to mobilize public opinion or support for something that matters.

Some would argue that this new technologically enabled way of life has made us more informed, and also more refined. Sure, I concede, and it indeed has. But too much information is not always necessarily an advantage-especially when it comes to savoring the finer aspects of life. Will good food and wine taste any better if you were bombarded with info on countless wine types and food tastes that may be out there?

If at all, they are likely to take away from the experience of enjoying it with some great human beings who may matter to you more than the food or wine itself. Let’s not forget that these are great accompaniments, but not a substitute for our special moments.

Don’t get me wrong- I am not a social pariah and also let me confess -I am actually a technology geek aspiring to be a data scientist. There is nothing wrong with technology or also with its power to inform, connect and entertain us. My issue is with this new brand of “technoculture” that has spawned in the last two decades or so which in my view is robbing us of our peace and serenity.