What do you think!

[Lionheart]

 http://spark.qualcomm.com/salon/technology-making-us-less-human A great article here on the subject of "Is Technology making us less Human?"
What are your views on this? Obviously with the mass marketing that is being pushed down our throats we can't stop it. But with willpower we can avoid it in our personal lives.

[ForrestDean]

Technology is nothing more than a tool we believe we have to use in our current mindset to work through our issues, to learn and to progress physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  But it's not required to advance a society.  Considering the current state of our dualistic reality in which we have allowed ourselves to be cut off from everything - being disconnected from the planet, from nature, from each other, and even from ourselves personally, we have, through our intuition and inner guidance, gradually developed ways that can lead us back to self realization and regain that connection with all life and with the Universe.  Society seemingly has always had that overwhelming urge to explore and discover who we are, where did we come from, where are we going, are we alone in the Universe, etc., because we are so incredibly disconnected... from everything.  We have that urge to rediscover ourselves and to learn the secrets of the Universe, so we do the only thing we feel we have the current knowledge to do, and that is to create the tools we feel is best appropriate to meet these needs and desires.

However, because we are disconnected from everything, including our environment, and because of the overwhelming desire to meet the demands of our ego combined with deeply embeded and dominating belief systems, we currently live out of harmony and out of balance with, well everything, and the majority of the technology that we have developed is a reflection of that disharmony.  But this is also all part of working through our issues and is part of our learning experience towards our full potential as a highly advanced society.  At the same time society is gradually and increasingly rediscovering itself and creating technology that is pushing society even faster towards a harmonious relationship with all life and restore the connection that we had lost, at which point we will no longer need that technology that has guided us along.  I'm not saying we will necessarily get rid of all technology, but that we're only using it to progress.  It's like training wheels to get us moving along until we no loger need them any further.  So currently we have 2 techonologies, one that is seemingly destroying everything to meet the demands of society such as oil and agriculture as one example, and one that is creating self awareness and reconnecting society such as the Internet for example.

It is wise that we do not become attached and dependent upon technology like we have been, and we are definitely incredibly and overwhelmingly attached.  Again, it should be looked at as a tool and not as a way of life.  Advanced technology is not indicative of an advanced society, nor does it make a society advanced - far from it.

[sunshaker]

 I see technology as a stepping stone, if i was a thinking (planet entity) and i had just lost most of my children to say a asteriod that wiped out most of life, i would create a  intelligent species to be guardians, to do what i could not do with "natural processes", I would make sure they had the tools the intelligence and natural resources to protect against such occurrances. So lets be careful we do not tip the scales and and become more of a liability instead of an asset.

[Stookie_]

ForestDean said it pretty well.

It's our relationship to technology that we need to keep in check. A smart phone doesn't steal your soul, you willingly hand it over in the contract.

[personalreality]

this is funny.  this morning on a local radio talk show the host was talking about a "new" mental illness called Nomophobia, which is the fear of being without your mobile device (cell phone, tablet, etc., whatever connects you to everyone else on the interwebs).

my concern is transhumanism, making humans more and more devoted to technology to the point that we merge with technology (brain chips all the way to full robotic implants and such.  maybe even to the point of something like surrogates), and then one day, the technological singularity comes and AI is born and then the matrix happens.

personally, i love the things i am able to do with technology, but it's not at all difficult for me to not use my technological devices.  i mean, i prefer to have my cell phone because it's the only phone i have (no house phone or anything), and it's also my date book, etc, etc, but i could be without it and i wouldn't mind.  there might be a little of the FOMO (fear of missing out) going on at first, but i'm not all about social networking and blah blah.  i pretty much only call 3 people (fiance, mom, dad) and only text with my fiance.  i do like that i have emulators for NES, SNES, SEGA, Gameboy & Gameboy Advance on my phone lol. 

but, it's not just me that's the concern, it's society as a whole.  the fact that nomophobia exists is a problem to me.  or how about when i went to my doctor's office a couple weeks ago and their computer system was down?  they couldn't pull up any of my records, couldn't change my records (ie the new medications i was put on) and they couldn't take payment (so i got a free doctor's visit because they didn't remember the next time i went and there was no record of my visit).  what happens if we get a solar flare that knocks all of our electronics out.  nevermind all of the industries that are completely automated, what about our day to day lives, computers, tvs, doctor's visits?  i think we'd go crazy as a society.  individually we might handle it fine, but as a whole, we'd lose out minds.

[Magic_Love]

I do not believe tec, as phones, tv and computers dumb us down or make us lazy. But how they are being used and what they send out is making us dumb which in turn makes us lazy. The tv send ut low frequenzies and is used as a mass brainwashing method, the phones are using a network which is dangerous to our brains etc.

If the tec is used right and send out the right frequezies and messages they are in fact good things.
We can connect to people all over the world, the tv could be used to share all the wonderful things around the world and phones makes it easier to connect with family and friends.

[Lionheart]

 Every new piece of technology has it's pros and cons. There are ways to use it to better our situation but unfortunately more ways to use it to manipulate us!