Society's Relationship with Technology

Technology has taken over our lives, when I get in my car I don't even use a key to start the ignition. When I turn off the lights I can do it from my phone to save me a trip to the light switch. If I want to watch a movie I say the name of it into my smart remote and watch it whereas 10 years ago I would have been driving to a Redbox. Technology is developing fast and infiltrating our daily lives even faster.  Manufacturing is being taken over by robots, Marketing is being taken over by AI, and 46% of teens report feeling overwhelmed by the drama and cyberbullying that takes place on social media. I downloaded Instagram in the 3rd grade and Snapchat in the 4th grade. By the time 5th grade rolled around, all of my friends followed me on Vine, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. I wasn't even a middle schooler yet and I was posting images, videos, and statements to websites that allowed anyone and everyone to see them. I didn't even have Roman Numerals memorized before I started putting out content that will live longer than I will. At the time, I had no idea what kind of impact this would have on me but as the years progressed and the term "digital footprint" started being thrown around the reality set in; the internet can be a truly dark place. 

I do not feel as though my relationship with technology is healthy but, I don't see that as unique to myself. I believe most citizens of first-world countries are also suffering from unhealthy relationships with technology. We've allowed advanced technologies into our homes like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, having them build our grocery lists for us, add things to our calendars for us, turn off the lights for us, lock doors for us, and even Googling answers to questions for us. These are all simple tasks that would take us, as humans, mere seconds to complete. However, instead of just doing it we allow the technology to do it for us, it's easier. 

In 1980 XCON, the first commercial AI product, hit the market. XCON was used to assist with the ordering of computer parts based on the customer's needs, automatically selecting products for a customer. Then, In 1997 Microsoft Outlook began using AI to help manage emails. See, we used to rely on technology for things that would actually be difficult for humans to do. Today, we use it for the mundane tasks I mentioned previously. Can we even still consider these to be advances for society if we as humans are regressing? If we keep allowing technology to take care of these simple tasks for us, the human race will turn into helpless individuals who rely on the smarts and expertise of a computer-engineered program. If society continues in this direction our usefulness will cease to exist. AI is already creating art, studying subjects and learning, it is just a matter of time before technology is intertwined in and takes over all aspects of our lives. The hardest part is that this is easy to overlook because technology has done and continues to do so much good for the human race. As a society, we need to find a common ground between respecting the advances in technology and becoming a slave to the technology.