What about digital technology makes it a unique tool or medium in human history?
Digital technology has allowed for one of the most human behaviors to continue and thrive, and that is communication. As human beings we are social creatures, we thrive for connectedness and to form relationships. Digital technology has allowed for a fast progressing world of communication. This tool allows for the basic task of communicating to be accessible across the globe, feeding that social being in us. Throughout history we have created tools to assist in communication of ideas and with each other, such as the printing press during the 1400’s, all the way to the I phone you probably have sitting right next to you. What becomes evident is that our attitude towards a need to communicate has led to development of easier and more widely accessible forms of communication.
(WellRight.com)
Along with an ease for communication, digital technology is unique in its ability to make the human’s job easier. As new digital technology is developed, the main advertising that comes along with it is how easy it will be for you, the consumer, to use it. This tool is unique in its ability to progress, always making things easier for us. In addition to making things easier, it makes them much faster, conditioning us to think at much faster rates, which can sometimes come as a fault. In the first chapter of Program or be Programmed, they discuss the concept of time, and how even digital technology (that has no regards for time at all), effects our perception of time. With the text and email alerts we get on a daily basis at the hands of our tech, we become more anxious for messages, and it encourages us to “need” to respond right away. In some ways these unique benefits for communication and ease of access are controlling us.
Digital technology has had the ability to improve our lives in way of efficiency and ease, but all the while changing who we are as people. It is truly an incredible development for humans, but where it may take us in terms of changing us comes with pause for considering the consequences.