The Love of Technology

Our devotion to technology is exceeding our commitment to our live relationships, or so says the many reports about the far-reaching impact that our devices have on everything from intimate partnerships to the raising of children. Forget the imminent danger of smart phones and moving vehicles, there are laws to protect us from ourselves for that. But on a more intimate level, our collective distraction levels fueled by the belief that something more important than what we are doing, or someone more interesting than the person we are with is waiting for us and is just a chime away on our smart phone. Our innate human need to connect is being multiplied by the exponential power of technology and in the process creating a new version of ourselves. Some researchers compare it to addictive behaviors, but most young people I know just think this is how it was always meant to be.

Recent research has started to uncover the impact of this recent rewiring of our brain and the inherent multi-tasking that our mobile and entertainment devices create. Frequent users of technology suffer serious deficits in their ability to focus and problem solve. This is even true among young children who are routinely accustomed to dealing with three or more technologies at a time. At the work place, many employees who work with computers now use up to 37 various programs and technologies in an hour.