Can Technology Actually Make Us More Human?
Humans are tool users, and hi-tech tools can isolate us. But in the brave new world of connected communications, they can also reinforce who we are.
The traditional view of high technology is that it is cold and impersonal, isolating and dehumanizing us. By using hi-tech tools, the thinking goes, we have fewer reasons to interact with each other, and so we become digital islands with increasingly-fewer touchpoints. But depending on how it’s used, communications technology – especially the mobile kind – actually has the ability to connect us in many new ways, and in the process reinforce our humanness and extend our ability to build valuable connections.
"We just finally produced a device that we can in principle make in our own image, at low cost, by manipulating bits." -James Bower
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Until not too long ago, our ability to interact with others from remote was limited to a fairly narrow set of contexts – talking on the phone, writing a letter. Yet from email to instant messaging, blogging to “micro-blogging” through services like Twitter and Facebook, videoconferencing and then video-blogging, hi-tech-enabled processes have provided new ways of doing something that’s fundamentally human – connecting through communications. |
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Compelling Evidence
Consider:
• The Internet isn’t just some new mix of technologies, says academic and entrepreneur James Bower. It’s actually a set of capabilities that mirror what humans already do.
• If one of the fundamental parts of being human is our need to connect with others like us, we’re on the cusp of major social advancements linking people who might never have met otherwise, says angel investor Jeff Clavier.
• Our technology-enabled social networks connect us in real time and all the time, say micro-blogger Laura Fitton and entrepreneur Loic Lemeur, respectively. That creates a fabric of human contact that’s more far-reaching and immediate than was ever possible before.
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• And increasingly, those connections will include those who were previously disconnected from the rest of the world, says GrameenPhone founder Iqbal Quadir. Add up all of these capabilities, and the result is far from a dehumanizing process – for those who use technology to connect rather than to disconnect. |
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Human Connections
But that’s perhaps the biggest challenge. Despite having legions of connections on Facebook and LinkedIn, despite Twittering and text, it’s still possible to use social media technology to be, well, asocial. These services are only valuable as connection tools if people want to connect. Every advance has its potential downside, and technology-mediated communications is no exception. Because we can communicate regularly with so many more people than we could without today’s tools, we inevitably maintain contact with a larger network – but we have to admit that we don’t know the average person in our network all that well. In fact, a whole range of new skills has to be developed to effectively manage these farflung relationships.
"In a poor country, it is even more transformative. Because other forms of infrastructures are very poor, they have a greater need for these kinds of communications that bypass all sorts of other things that impede progress." -Iqbal Quadir
So, does maintaining more connections than ever before make us more or less human? That obviously depends on your definition. But by intentionally using social tools and personal devices to develop and maintain relationships, we reinforce one of the most fundamental aspects of being human – the need to communicate.
Copyright 2010 by IdeasProject
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