Think of it this way: The Internet itself isn’t evil, but what is
Facebook if not a thing that relies on us incessantly sharing and
documenting our lives and comparing them to others’ in perpetuity? The
companies and platforms that, for many of us, comprise our experience of
the web, have built structures that play to human emotion and desire
with ruthless efficiency. Like any phenomenon, you can use these things
against the grain, but by and large, we are embroiled in systems meant
to extract something from us, whether that is time, feeling, data, or
money—and not being able to shake the feeling you should be photographing this moment or checking your phone is part of that.
Is
technology inherently alienating or disconnecting? Well, no—it isn’t
inherently anything, but our current exposure to digital technology is
shaped and purposed by a set of large companies who have gotten really
good at exploiting human sentiment. Oversimplifying the discourse to say
that it is “technology” in general that it is blame for our
alienation—rather than the networks and entities who are dominating
those tools—is only hurting, rather than helping the situation.
- Navneet Alang
descensus Averno facilis est