Technology has never before played such a large role in our lives. So far, that role has mostly been positive — largely thanks to advances in technology, we have never been more prosperous, there have never been more of us, and we have never been more at peace. But the mistaken idea that technology can be relied on to solve all of our problems on its own has become more and more common thanks to these trends. The question is: will those trends continue to hold, or is it just a coincidence that technological advancement has correlated with our well-being?
The idea that technology might be more trouble than it is worth, or that it may have catastrophic consequences down the line, is nothing new. It is a widespread theme in post-apocalyptic and dystopian science fiction, genres which dominates sales both in the bookstore and at the box office. The Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Terminator and Divergent series are just a few examples from last year. It is also a favourite theme of fringe ideologies, from radical environmentalists to religious fundamentalists. But mainstream culture, despite being inundated with dystopian SciFi franchises, still sees tech as its starring protagonist. How people use their time and money shows this: they spend their limited resources on what they value most. Three of the top five most valuable companies on earth are tech companies. The majority of people spend almost their entire waking life with tech: data from last year showed that Americans use electronic media for more than 11 hours a day on average.
When almost everything you do on a daily basis involves tech, you are far more inclined to hero-worship than criticism. And since the most common sources of tech alarmism are either blockbuster franchises or paranoids toting protest signs, anxiety over tech’s role in our future can seem about as rational as worrying about aliens or magic. So the idea that tech might be doing more harm than good is easy to dismiss. Meanwhile, both because it is been advancing so quickly and because we get so much value from it in our daily lives, tech’s capacity to solve our problems can seem infinite.