The world is getting smaller and smaller as new technologies arise. Businesses are being managed and monitored miles and miles from across the globe. Contents of foreign magazines easily reach almost all countries through online insertions. News travels so fast in a split second so that reporters or columnists are on edge on whether their writings are accurate in terms of facts or not. Even the meanings of words of the different languages can readily be deciphered and easily used in writing so that the printed dictionaries are almost always considered obsolete already.
It is only in Third World countries where there is still respect and greater use for the printed medium I guess. The proliferation of printed tabloids on the sidewalks, the use of flyers to advertise business offerings, and notebooks for writing rather than on the computer are still around thereby allowing us to read, reread and if writing, edit the contents. In the rural areas, where electricity is not available, the schooling children invariably use notebooks and paper to do their studies.
Let us admit that the computer technologies revolutionized the cultural spaces in our world, in the key cities especially We are either at the mercy of these gadgets, or the victims of misuse of individual villains, and sometimes addicts due to habits formed by computer games, showing the over permissive character of the system being paraded under the guise of freedom of expression. Instead of being the controllers of these gadgets, people become mere robots following its rules and being a slave to its surprising moves.
Actually, online selling is the greatest beneficiary of the computer development. Some people find greater ease in transacting online for the products they wish to acquire instead of moving about from mall to mall to search and haggle for their prices.
But what are the disadvantages of this so-called revolutionary way of communicating for us?
What does it make us do to bequeath a rational, peaceful and socially-conscious world to our children?
Why rational? This is because we cannot afford to commit mistakes when using the computers. It can be sent to thousands and even millions of individuals with one click and to commit a mistake is to commit it a thousand or a million times like that instance when the geographical location of a volcano was erroneously placed in another city.
Pity the children who would be reading and misunderstanding facts in the computer screens as their minds are highly absorbent of right and wrong data.
Secondly, a rational world would provide us leaders who would be caring of all peoples in the planet, not just thinking of boundaries and territories. Ergo, if they are conscious of others then they would be nurturing as well in order to have peace in the world. Is that a logical conclusion? I guess so. A rational individual bred by humane societies could find ways and means to solve problems instead of contributing to the demise of the world. An irrational individual on the other hand seeks to blow up the world, and live only within his or her world. Or an irrational individual is anti-human. An irrational individual is after sheer power, unqualified and solely possessed by him or her.
Socially-conscious world
Now why the need for a socially-conscious world? And how can the computer technologies provide us the steps, the standards, the methods of achieving or attaining a rational, peaceful and socially-conscious world?
There is no more a time in world history when social consciousness is abjectly needed. No one can brag that social consciousness is passé as he or she was able to attain economic sufficiency without thinking of the other fellow. The fact that money revolves among different hands shows already that society needs a consciousness of others, and that no one is really an island.
The presence of socially-conscious individuals means that no one will be left behind, literally and figuratively. No one will be a stumbling block to the progress of humankind. No one will use any means to eradicate or cripple human kind. Racism will be a thing of the past, and economic inequalities shall be overcome with ease.
Ergo, we should make the use of computer technologies a very important part of the human activities.
At the mercy of gadgets
Unfortunately, in our country, we are more at the mercy of these gadgets than controllers of them. A young lady got on a filled bus and held on to the railing with her celfone on her hand. Can you see that excessive hankering to display her celfone? It is almost an obsession for many of our young people as we can see. How they hold on to them as if they would be nothing, no identity without their gadget. They guard it with their lives as can be shown by the number of people who have been killed by celfone holduppers and robbers.
Inside churches, do you think that the worshippers are dutifully performing their religious prayers? No sir, no madam, many are reading text messages, and who knows others could be playing games.
Thus I think that all churches must have an announcement before commencing the mass that all celfones have to be muted; or the religious order must have a jammer to stop all users from using them.
More than being controlled by these gadgets, our women fall prey to the goings-on in the foreign countries where there is less and less Prudence in dealing with sex. I watched videos of sexually-explicit scenes being projected on the screen of an east asian restaurant in Manila. The young customers come from religious schools of the College of the Holy Spirit, the Centro Escolar University, and the University of the East, among others. What is the effect of such Video screens on them? They induce them subtly or overtly to copy, imitate the acts which could be hazardous to their trying to achieve a scholarly destiny.
Despite our favorable assessment of computer technologies in the previous sections, the negative benefits seem to surpass them. What are these:
1. They breed self-centeredness and egoism;
2. They spawn alienation in the family and in society;
3. They draw in the young to the issues of pornography, racism, so easily. The availability of information on them makes them think of imitating the acts, experimenting on what it makes of them should they follow these issues;
4. It inclines individuals to be materialistic, to shun contrary opinions despite the country’s immersion in a democratic system;
5. On the matter of sex, computer technologies are reeking with different presentations. Some trivialize it. The available lessons on sex in the internet raise the question on whether sex has lost its value or that people are now demeaning sex as a sacred act between married couples or consenting free adultsl
Families which exist for technologies are definitely already alienated from each other, unless they are together in doing a project that requires everyone to use one equipment each.
Technologies could be used for political purposes to hit at people with contrary opinions. I saw a video board in front of a barangay and as soon as I approached the screen was shifted to how waste management is done. That is familiar, this presence of trucks that carry wastes. They immediately appear as I leave the house. During the time of Bayani this scene was very prevalent, and it has continued until now. Then I heard that a political commentator over the radio also experiences the same. I guess that is how the State conduct psychological warfare. But who cares?
The polarized lifestyles between the haves and have-not countries are very stark on the internet. Hence, when people from the latter start surfing and find how healthy-looking the residents in the former, it is axiomatic that they would want to attain the same lifestyle. And so the internet could arouse frustration or inspiration on the viewers.
Alienation is the biggest result of these computer technologies. The one-on-one character of using these equipment makes the individuals think that they are in control, they are the power behind the transfer of scenes on the screen from one point to another which is false. Technologies are never free of tampering. An art connoisseur showed me a series of photos of her family on her celfone and she was surprised to find that the slideshow was categorized pleasingly -- without her lifting a finger. The celfone put together those photos of one child, the next child, and so forth and so on. It did its own categorization which was rationally done.
Now I am really wondering what kind of generations we are breeding when they spend two to three hours or more a day playing war games on the internet.
So in truth we are like the polar bear above who is standing on an iceberg that is slowly melting and soon she will no longer have any ice around. How could our ice animals survive the onslaught of capitalistic urges to accumulate wealth using fossil fuels that heat up the earth?
Technologies are like the ice that fade in and out of our lives depending on the innovations that are brought in. But at the same time, humankind who are just human, after all, could eventually lose half of their humaneness to that insatiable lust for computer power.
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