When we think about the price of technological progress, we tend to think about its dark side. Nuclear fission can be used to generate electricity as well as bombs. Explosives can be used to destroy roads as well as build them. Computer networks bring people together and make larger, more collaborative works possible. They also enable new forms of criminal activities. Countless other examples can be given of how different technologies can be used for useful as well as harmful purposes.
This however is not the only price that we have paid for our rapid and rapidly continuing technological progress. We have paid the price in other forms that we are generally not even aware of. The quickening pace of technological advancement and the social changes that it has engendered has led to a general coarsening of our lives. In many aspects, our attitudes, the things we tend to take for granted and some of the things that we have lost would have horrified earlier generations.
Take the birth control pill for example. This has had positive benefits. Women have gained a greater control over the number and timing of their pregnancies. However, there has also been an unexpected effect; pregnancies out of wedlock are no longer considered shameful. This is an astonishing change that has occurred in the space of a single generation. Ofcourse a question arises: does it matter? I believe it does. I think that marriage brings a stability to society as a whole. Whether marriage is viewed as a sacred construct not to be tampered with under any circumstances or whether it is viewed as a contract that binds two people together and that should not be tampered with lightly does not really matter. A married individual assumes a burden of responsibility that he/she is not likely to disregard easily. It is much easier to walk away from a relationship when there is no marital contract. The result is that a large number of children grow up in one parent households. Research has shown that children growing up in such households are more likely to suffer from poverty than two parent households. The end result is that society as a whole suffers.
Such an effect however is an example that we can generally see and discuss and I will leave discussion of such broad changes till another post. Technological progress has resulted in other more subtle changes in our society and our thinking. These are changes that we are usually not even aware of. The worse thing is that if we do become aware of such changes, we tend to dismiss them as inconsequential but as I mentioned above, the cumulative effect of such changes is a general coarsening of our lives.
A good example of the subtle effects of technological progress is the art of writing. A positive benefit of technology has been that more is now being written on a wider variety of subjects than ever before. The problem is the very ease of writing. In the days when pen had to be physically put to paper, writers needed to structure their thoughts carefully in order to reduce the amount of editing later. This resulted on average in better prose (and perhaps even poetry). Today, the editing effort is relatively trivial thanks to computers and word processors. This convenience can (and sometimes does) result in intricately detailed and beautifully executed story-lines and writing. More often, it results in shoddy thinking resulting in shoddy writing. Most of what is written is thus essentially forgettable.
Another effect that technology has had on writing is that the pace of life has increased over time. Greater complexity in society and our economy comes at the cost of us having to devote increasingly greater amounts of time towards understanding and reacting to these forces. This means that we have less amount of time to devote to any particular task. This has had the effect that we now want our information in sound bites. The effect on writing is that the older style which required leisurely reading is now considered obsolete. Again the question arises: does it matter and again I will argue that it does. Sound bites have the unfortunate effect of reducing complex issues to simplistic slogans which not only do not inform, they actually do the opposite. While this would not matter in the case of fiction, it matters enormously for analyzing information. Why do people in the West largely fail to understand the roots of what they consider terrorism? Why are people not reacting to the financial collapse? Why are people not more alarmed about global warming? I believe this is because most people rely on sound bites that they get from TV and radio. This trend of using sound bites has steadily increased over time. An end result is twitter. Humans talk (and write). Birds twitter. People who twittered were previously considered to be brainless dullards. Even the dictionary meaning of twitter reflects this. Perhaps this is a sign of our times that twitter has become so popular. It is not as though writing a tweet is harmless. Despite what most people would think, going on twitter and writing a tweet can actually be dangerous. This is because twitter encourages writing and publishing spontaneously. As some people have discovered, this can cause job losses.
Related to the effect on writing is the effect on hand writing. People have lost the art of good hand writing and I include myself in this category. My parents generation was actually taught good hand writing. This focus was subsequently lost. Today with the ubiquitous use of computers and the spread of the net, people simply do not need to put pen to paper at all. As a result, the ability to write beautifully has largely disappeared. The most dramatic effect of this has been the loss of the art of calligraphy. This was a labor of love. Even today we admire good calligraphy. However, no one is willing to learn how to do this today. The master calligraphers of old are now in their twilight days. Their children are not willing to learn what was a family trade. Once these people go, the world will be a poorer place for this loss. While this is a subtle effect, its passing is nevertheless something to mourn about.
Then what about the art of conversation? The ability to carry an interesting and elegant conversation on a wide range of topics was considered the hallmark of a gentleman and a lady in virtually every culture in previous times. An educated person was someone who was widely read and frequently widely traveled. Today what is considered an educated person is essentially a technocrat. An insidious effect of this is that there has been a loss of grace. The ability to interact with each other and specially with strangers has degraded over time. What is considered civilized behavior today would to a large extent have been considered boorish in an earlier era.
Technology is wonderful. It has given us many benefits and have enriched our lives in many different ways. It is now difficult if not impossible to imagine life without electricity, running water, computers and the many activities made possible by them, automobiles, airplanes to give just a few examples. All these things have enriched us and opened up a range of possibilities that simply could not have existed before. Personally I would not want to turn the clock back. Yet there has been a price to pay for all these achievements. The tragedy is that as a civilization we are like junkies demanding our latest technological fix and not noticing the subtle loss of beauty and grace.
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