watch your self

Technology is such a fascinating art. The creativity involved in optimizing functionality is one that you cannot but appreciate. It’s amazing and it’s doing wonders for us as humans. 

Think about it. 
You don’t have to send letters and hope for months that loved ones would eventually receive them, you can’t just send a text. 

You don’t have to make it a requirement for employees to live in the same city as your office, you can just outsource and keep them in the loop. 

You don’t even have to have physical photo albums, you can just open an instagram account. 

That being said, I am bit worried about the downsides of technology - particularly the one that has to do with our mind. As good as technology makes our lives, I think it makes us lose ourselves. 

The term ‘Self’ has to do with relative consciousness. It is a state of awareness that a subject has for itself. 

Unfortunately, technology is making us lose a bit of our self-consciousness and self-awareness - and as a result, we are losing our self-direction.

Wikipedia says a self directed person is someone who has ‘the ability to regulate and adapt behavior to the demands of a situation in order to achieve personally chosen goals and values.’

The fact that technology solves our functionality problems make it easier for us to not think of how to solve certain problems. In order words, it makes us less functional or less dogmatic as thinkers. Thanks to technology, our societies are ridden with people who don’t want to find answers but feel like they are entitled to just have the answers. Someone else, something else, some computer, some operating system should do the dirty work of finding the answers. 

We need to find a balance - a way to use technology without losing ourselves. A way to regain and retain our self-awareness, self-consciousness and self-direction. We need to look out for our self.