Technology And Consciousness - Case Study Example

Name Institution Date Consciousness can be described as the level of awareness that human beings have of themselves, their environmental surrounding, the sensations they may be feeling, thoughts occurring in their minds and the intuition they may have at the present time. It can also occur in many levels, including in dreams where a person is in a subconscious state but still being able to see certain environment as they really are, consciousness is also present when one is in a meditative or spiritual state of awareness. In human being, consciousness, is always evolving and it changes with age, change in environment and age (Yates and Eugene), humans were able to dominate nature in the past by learning its working, imitating how nature works and then ruling it. Learning and being ever conscious of everything around humans is what made us what we are today the ruling species of the universe (Dennett, 1991). As a newborn baby, one starts to learn new things such as language, mannerisms through observation and imitation as they are humans key human instincts, this process continues throughout life, observation, imitating and adapting to the environment (Fishman, n.d). Humans adapt to practices such as mannerisms and habits from those people who are closest to the through observation and imitation.that is why we spend decades in school then the entire rest of our lives gaining knowledge and experience Modern technology does not enables us to work in similar state of consciousness as we have been programmed to do over centuries, technology is not like nature where we can interact, learn from it and store sensory information. Modern technology such as the internet has humans relaxed and not has to store anything in their minds. Every time a person surfs the internet, as Carr (2010) argues, by surfing one is rewiring their synapses and training it to wonder from thought to thought or ideas to an idea instead of focusing on one thing and following through with it to the end . By doing that one is rewarded by having knowledge of a lot of small bits information from different topics especially from social sites such as twitter. Many people from around the globe even writers have seen this is as success as you will have a lot of information which you can access to fast and easily without the hustle of having to remember by just a click of your figure, with this there is no need to carry all that information with your head. Carr (2010) is however more skeptical about it. He argues that the brain is not a computer that can be filled up with only a limited amount of data that it is meant to hold. Learning means a continuous storage of new information in the brain. Continuous storage will enable it to build more capacity in the brain and this will enable an individual to reason deeply. With the emergence of technology people will not see the need to learn and store more in the brain and this ability to build capacity to think might be lost over time. Worries of Carr are not new. Nietzsche who is a writer found his prose style becoming a bit harder and more difficult to flow as he moved from pen to typewriter (Carr pg. 276) From this analysis one cannot help but wonder, is Google making us stupid or lowering our mind potential?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question out to the public, in an article he wrote in the Atlantic Monthly, he tapped in to well-founded thoughts and concerns that are bringing a lot of anxiety to people about how internet is changing our way of lives from how we know it. It made people think if the internet is making them limit their minds from achieving an even higher potential (Carr, 2008). The author also expounds on his question by exploring the internet’s workings and how we utilize it. As he describes how the human thoughts have come up gradually over the centuries by learning imitating and perfecting skills this can be seen clearly on how we developed from the alphabet and graduated to maps then the printing press after printing press came the clock, and finally the computer. He further explains the ways which a hardcopy book has served to focus our attention and how it promotes deep and creative thought which can Cleary record the records of event that happened in the book, the Internet in comparison encourages a rapid and distracted sampling and reading of different information from different sources hence has no flow of information. However as time passes people are becoming even more adapted to scanning and skimming through the computer, but due to that we are slowly losing our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. If there was a situation where we can have the proverbial pie and eat it, it would be the best possible scenario, we would be able to build our brain capacity and also have access to limitless and numerous topics without the possibility of losing concentration or growing lazy of having to store information in our brains. Greenfield, 2009, bases her book on people of three different personalities which she refers to as, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody; this analogy is brought about from fundamentalism of a person to lack self which is brought about by long periods in front of a screen. She later adds a fourth personality trait that she calls the eureka. This trait is creative and ends her book with recommendations that promote creativity in the education system. Information and technology appears to empower us but may also contribute to a negative approach that was not there before the emergence of technology. This is our own subjectivity and ability to do more by our self through critical thinking of just our brain and not appealing for help from the computer. There are simple things that we were able to do by ourselves before the emergence of technology but now we are becoming less and less capable of handling a task by ourselves without involving technology. Humans have become so reliant on technology that they don’t seem to function normally without having a form of technology near them (Greenfield, 2009). Human as an individual is not simply given but slowly constructed socially through interaction with others and the environment. Ones status as an individual depends on other people recognising the person through certain behaviours. Individuality is based on many levels; it can be cultural, religious, and social and depends on many settings (Greenfield, 2009). In the West individuality it has signified by a personal relationship among people. Modern technologies like the internet and television, on the other hand, have a way that their social arrangements that often diminish direct recognition of people and do not help develop the unique sense of individuality in different people. Development of technology has replaced the normal face to face interaction of people and instead replaced it with abstract and anonymous interaction and relationships which a far cry from the more personal interactive relationships from the past. This impersonal interactions is all over all places that people once interacted to a face to face and more personal level, this places include, schools, cooperation’s, government bureaus, banks. The personal interactions from the past enabled people to interact with people from different backgrounds and different ideologies and this enabled an individual to develop a strong sense of individuality through interaction. Lack of interaction reduces spontaneous interactions which is only human and makes life more interesting in its case humans reactions have become so predictable because of continuously interacting with machines. Replacing humans with machines in this institutions has made humans sorely depende3nt on machines and in case it goes down no work can be done Alertness to the environment is something that can be changed to suit another’s needs; it can be manipulated for the better and also for worse. In information that is given by the social media and televisions influence human consciousness, what we consume from television, we become and this changes the awareness of people from around the world. A higher awareness can be created by an individual but through continuous consumption of the same thing from the television a human consciousness is slowly hacked. This process is often brought about by directly appealing to human’s most basic sense which is fear and sex. People from every field have used sex to sell products by triggering the sense of desire and ego fulfillment. Fear is mostly used to sell political ideas and public policies which seem to prevent grievances (Koops) As technology has steadily progressed and changed over the years so has our consciousness, we need to understand what it is about technology that is making people change and get so reluctant to using their mind to their full potential instead of having the need to always enquire information from the computers instead of accessing it from the brain. People nowadays have fully grown reliant on technology some are so engrossed I their telephones or computer and they no longer notice what is happening around them, families have broken up because they no longer interact physically and talk but instead are always engrossed in technology. Children have grown up without feeling the sense of closeness from their parents and they will grow up to be people with no sense of individuality because they never interact with all the environmental factors and other people long enough to build a sense of individuality. Humans built technology to help them in their day to day activity and also make their work easier and now instead of governing the machines, humans are being governed by machines, in cooperation’s, work cannot be done in the case of machine failure, people cannot access money if the system is down. It is the high time that people learnt to control machines in their lives and not let them take control. The level of consciousness of people around the world has steadily dropped with the emergence of technology, people no longer have the time to take in the environment or time to dwell on a certain intuition because they are so engrossed in technology. This shouldn’t be the case and young people should be aware there is more to life than just being in front of a screen. References The shallows: how the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember = the shallows: Carr, Nicholas G ( 2010). What the Internet is doing to our brains by:. Atlantic Books Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Carr, N. (2008). Is Google Making Us Stupid? Retrieved June 9, 2015 from Yates, F.eugene. Complexity of a human being: changes with age. Neurobiology of Aging Susan Greenfield: The Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century Paperback .September 1, 2011 Barglow Raymond . 1994. The Crisis of the Self in the Age of Information: Computers, Dolphins and Dreams. Routledge, New York, NY By: Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society1995-02-01 Daniel C. Dennett, Little, Brown 1991. Consciousness Explained. Boston, MA. Fishman, Joshua. Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Some Things Learned; Some Things Yet to Learn. The Modern Language Journal Koops, Matthias. Historical Account of the Substances Which Have Been Used to Describe Events, and to Convey Ideas, from the Earliest Date, to the Invention of Paper. N.p Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Read More

Worries of Carr are not new. Nietzsche who is a writer found his prose style becoming a bit harder and more difficult to flow as he moved from pen to typewriter (Carr pg. 276) From this analysis one cannot help but wonder, is Google making us stupid or lowering our mind potential?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question out to the public, in an article he wrote in the Atlantic Monthly, he tapped in to well-founded thoughts and concerns that are bringing a lot of anxiety to people about how internet is changing our way of lives from how we know it.

It made people think if the internet is making them limit their minds from achieving an even higher potential (Carr, 2008). The author also expounds on his question by exploring the internet’s workings and how we utilize it. As he describes how the human thoughts have come up gradually over the centuries by learning imitating and perfecting skills this can be seen clearly on how we developed from the alphabet and graduated to maps then the printing press after printing press came the clock, and finally the computer.

He further explains the ways which a hardcopy book has served to focus our attention and how it promotes deep and creative thought which can Cleary record the records of event that happened in the book, the Internet in comparison encourages a rapid and distracted sampling and reading of different information from different sources hence has no flow of information. However as time passes people are becoming even more adapted to scanning and skimming through the computer, but due to that we are slowly losing our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection.

If there was a situation where we can have the proverbial pie and eat it, it would be the best possible scenario, we would be able to build our brain capacity and also have access to limitless and numerous topics without the possibility of losing concentration or growing lazy of having to store information in our brains. Greenfield, 2009, bases her book on people of three different personalities which she refers to as, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody; this analogy is brought about from fundamentalism of a person to lack self which is brought about by long periods in front of a screen.

She later adds a fourth personality trait that she calls the eureka. This trait is creative and ends her book with recommendations that promote creativity in the education system. Information and technology appears to empower us but may also contribute to a negative approach that was not there before the emergence of technology. This is our own subjectivity and ability to do more by our self through critical thinking of just our brain and not appealing for help from the computer. There are simple things that we were able to do by ourselves before the emergence of technology but now we are becoming less and less capable of handling a task by ourselves without involving technology.

Humans have become so reliant on technology that they don’t seem to function normally without having a form of technology near them (Greenfield, 2009). Human as an individual is not simply given but slowly constructed socially through interaction with others and the environment. Ones status as an individual depends on other people recognising the person through certain behaviours. Individuality is based on many levels; it can be cultural, religious, and social and depends on many settings (Greenfield, 2009).

In the West individuality it has signified by a personal relationship among people. Modern technologies like the internet and television, on the other hand, have a way that their social arrangements that often diminish direct recognition of people and do not help develop the unique sense of individuality in different people. Development of technology has replaced the normal face to face interaction of people and instead replaced it with abstract and anonymous interaction and relationships which a far cry from the more personal interactive relationships from the past.

Read More