We all interact technology on a daily basis, at times unaware that we are doing so. We set alarms on our phones and constantly press snooze, allowing our first interaction of the day to be with technology. We cook breakfast on the stove or simply make some toast, showing our need for technology in the kitchen. We check bus or train timetables on the internet, ensuring we arrive at work or uni on time. We do all of this with the help of technology, and all before leaving the house in the morning.
Overtime, humans have changed the way they interact with technology. “Machines are getting better at understanding us, we are getting better at understanding them and both sides are getting smarter by working together,” [Cavan Group, 2013]. Computers, mobile phones, kitchen appliances, vehicles. We interact with these objects constantly and so often that they have become such a major part of our lives. We are at the point where we have become dependent on technology. “[B]oth develop in symbiosis with one another, without the human being realising how much in life is controlled by technology,” [Lindholm, 2009]. To have a dependence on something, whether it is a living being or not, allows one to eventually develop a relationship with it.
Brooker, C. 2013, Be Right Back, Youtube, viewed 1 October 2015 < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzSIQxc_KqE >
An example of a human technology relationship can be seen in ‘Be Right Back’, the first episode in season two of the ‘Black Mirror’ series. The main character Martha, lives with her partner Ash, who very early in the episode is killed in a car accident. Martha is left devastated, and at his funeral, a friend refers her to a new online service which allows her to speak to him. The service accesses all of Ash’s social media updates, private messages, emails – anything he’s ever posted online. It collects this data and creates an online profile of him, which replies to received messages instantly, mimicking his style of grammar and tone through typed messages.
Martha starts sending messages to the online version of her passed husband. She begins to forget that it’s not really him, and her feelings begin to grow for what is really a form of technology based off a human being. The next phase of the service allows her to send through videos and voice recordings, allowing the profile to create a voice which sounds just like Ash’s. She talks to him on the phone everyday, deepening the relationship with the profile. Martha continues on to the next phase. She orders a synthetic body, resembling an adult sized fetus, which she activates using all of the data the online profile has collected. Using photos of Ash as a reference, it morphs into an exact replica of him: a clone. The episode ends with Martha realising that she cannot replace her husband with technology. She begins to see how much its lacks emotion, and the ability to feel and think exactly as Ash would, and so she realises she will never be able to relate or connect fully with it.
Be Right Back, Movie Pilot, viewed 9 October 2015 < http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/02/07/ranking-all-the-black-mirror-episodes-2668635 >
The service that Martha uses in this episode to contact her husband, shows just how much humans can interact, depend on, and develop a relationship with technology. For awhile we can use technology to distract us from our reality. But as time passes we realise that they cannot replace something that once existed in a different form, for example, human beings. What we need to question is whether technology is “making us more distracted and less able to concentrate?” And if it is “harming our ability to think and be creative, and therefore by extension harming society as a whole?” [Ingram, 2012].
It’s too late to turn back and erase the relationships we’ve already established with technology. But reevaluating just how much we rely and depend on technology in our daily lives may save us from the perhaps eventual destruction of humanity.
REFERENCES
Cavan Group. 2013, The Evolving Relationship Between Humans and Machines, The Cavan Group, viewed 9 October 2015 < http://www.cavangroup.com/the-evolving-relationship-between-humans-and-machines >
Lindhold, C. 2009, The Relationship Between Humans And Technology, Lund University, viewed 9 October 2015 < http://www.ch.lu.se/english/research/meet-our-researchers/the-relationship-between-humans-and-technology >
Brooker, C. 2013, Be Right Back, Youtube, viewed 1 October 2015 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzSIQxc_KqE >
Be Right Back, Movie Pilot, viewed 9 October 2015 <http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/02/07/ranking-all-the-black-mirror-episodes-2668635 >
Ingram, M. 2012, Is Modern Technology Creating a Culture of Distraction?, Gigaom, viewed 9 October 2015 < http://gigaom/com/2012/06/23/is-modern-technology-creating-a-culture-of-distraction/ >
Donna Dumas
group4thefuture 