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Will technology bring more freedom take away our humanness?

I recently attended a meeting organized by a local nonprofit organization in Denver. The meeting took place at a small conference room with almost 20 people in attendance. Suddenly, the phone of the director of the organization loudly rang.

She looked for her phone inside her purse and turned it off. However, just a few short minutes later, the phone rang again. The director again turned it off, but the phone rang a third time. By then, it was evident people in the room were annoyed.

The director, sensing the situation, asked for a recess. During that interval, I overheard her talking with one of the participants, to whom she confessed she didn’t know how to silence or mute the phone, because it was a new device and she was yet unfamiliar with the commands and operations.

The participant shared a couple of instructions and the phone didn’t ring again.

The director’s phone was similar to mine, so, once I got home, I decided to review the user’s manual of my own phone. I discovered my device has 113 “basic” commands and each command includes a menu of other options and actions. I can safely speculate my phone includes thousands and perhaps even tens of thousands of potential combinations of actions and commands.

Far from feeling annoyed because the director couldn’t stop her phone from ringing, I felt overwhelmed by an avalanche of technology I didn’t ask for, I can’t control and, even worse, it creates every day a wider gap between those who have access to technology and those who don’t.

I still remember those days when the only action needed to call somebody was to take the receiver up to your ear and then dial the desired number. That was before the phones became also camera, camcorder, audio recorders, MP3 players, alarm clocks, radio, and who knows how many other things related to e-mail, IM, MMS, and similar connection technologies.

The simple phone existed at the same time when the remote control of the TV only had three buttons: ON/OFF, Channel, and Volume. That was it.

Today, my remote control has so many buttons controlling so many devices I am afraid I will punch the buttons in the incorrect sequence and I will unwillingly activate some kind of self-destruct mechanism. In fact, the remote control has become so complex, that many times I just prefer to walk to the TV set to change channels or the volume, or to turn it on or off.

Technology is so enmeshed in our lives we think it is impossible to live without technology, and, therefore, we kindly forgive technology for every day taking a little more control over our lives. We believe technology will save us, without realizing we are already its slaves.

Before we debate any health, education, or immigration reform, we should first implement a reform able to restore our own human essence, unless we all want to become cyborgs. That nightmarish future may happen sooner than we think.

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