Is technology working for us, or are we working for technology? Now that much of our lives depends upon computerized devices, audimated voice systems, and the reason for gasoline, its hard to know what we would do without it.

<pre><code>Technology vs. Humanity</code></pre> <pre><code>Most people believe that as human beings, we can control the use of technology around us. Technology cannot make decisions on its own. It is as inanimate as a table or a chair, both objects of purpose and function. When a friend calls me to tell me of her late arrival to our meeting, the phone does not dial the correct numbers, my friend does. Next week, my brother will drive through Massachusetts. The car does not choose the ways he will turn and how much pressure he will put upon the accelerator. My brother decides these things.</code></pre>

Technology allows us to travel at extraordinary speeds, listen to news from around the world, and stay in contact with friends and family by simply pushing one button. We can even do these things simultaneously. To make life easier and to get things done more quickly, we use technology to do a lot of our work. But, are we responsible for problems that might occur while using these tools? Humans have created and continue to create technology. Yet, we seem to let technology take over at certain times. If we allow technology to become an authority, aren’t we transferring and diffusing our feelings of responsibility onto the object, the technology, in authority? In situations like this, the outcome of events depends upon this technology. We as humans give technology a status equal to, and sometimes above, our own. We have invited technology to handle the outcome of certain events in our lives.

<pre><code>Problems and mechanical errors will happen when we rely upon technology. Many times society generalizes these problems. When our society generalizes, we no longer feel it is important to distinguish between what one should have done to prevent a problem and an unpredicted or unpreventable malfunction. Humans need to remember their authority over technology and the responsibility that comes with this authority.</code></pre>

As we live amongst the rush of daily life with all our wants and needs, we depend upon technology to handle certain tasks. Of course we trust a calculator or a cash register to calculate numbers. That is its job, and unlike a human, it does it the same way, correctly, every time. But while trusting these objects, shouldn’t we also remember how to do these things on our own?

When a power outage occurs, we are rendered helpless and flustered as we have lost our own sense of control, power. Our own brains need to take center stage, and a wave of shock comes over them as they are accustomed to use as a back-up tool, a last resort to running our lives in many situations. Yes, we do need to know how to add up the right amount of eggs in our refrigerators so we can make an angel food cake, an omelet, food in general. We need to know how to find the best unit price for fuel, rent, and a mortgage so we can survive financially.

If half of all technology was taken from the earth today, wouldn’t many of the people we know struggle to survive? Many would burst in frustration and boredom when they find their days or evenings without a television. The immediate world appears uncomfortable, helpless and we are lost without a cell phone, the hand-held help line. Thinking, responding, and making good decisions would become an individualized activity, apart from other influences and authorities. Perhaps we simply live in a culture of technology, no different than a culture dependent upon a river as a water and food source. Yet, all over the world, technology is used and continues to become more frequently used in areas of life that many people did not think necessary or possible. Maybe the use of technology spreads because humans both create and then are able to understand it, inside and out? People are far too complicated to understand; unlike machines, they involve both rational and irrational thought and actively make decisions for themselves. People are able to use machines to manipulate life into a set of directions. By doing this, the work, complications, discussions, and interactions that human beings would have had in following these sets of directions or tasks, is taken away.

Like simplifying a mathematical equation or the invention of a more efficient vehicle, allowing a machine to do a once hand-done job sounds great. There is less to deal with, less mess. Machines have permanently replaced some of the jobs once occupied by humans. Two commonly known occupations of this type are a cashier or over-the-phone customer service. Is it possible that the heads of companies, people of the highest economic class, make decisions which directly affect others in society? Have they decided that it is too great an inconvenience for their business to deal with their customers concerns and complaints?

<pre><code>Horkheimer and Adorno write “No mention is made of the fact that the basis on which technology acquires power over society is the power of those whose economic hold over society is the greatest.” Doesn't it seem that our society's economic leaders say that they no longer wish to take the time to answer their customer's questions, except through technology, a façade to sincere customer service? Perhaps the reasoning for these many companies is that if the irrational human being deals with another irrational human being, there is much risk for failure. Machines work more quickly, and they are less expensive over time. Employers are more certain that the job will get done if a machine does it, with the exception of a mechanical problem. But then, isn't a machine different from a human being in the way that we may easily fix and even take away the flaws of technology? It is complete rational.</code></pre> <pre><code>Human interaction is lost between companies and their customers. Corporations dehumanize both their employees and their customers through the ways that they are measured, categorized, dealt with and labeled. “Consumers appear a statistics on research organization charts, and are divided by income groups…the technique is that used for any type of propaganda. (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1225)”</code></pre>

What choice do most have but to be fed the culture that results from severe reliance upon technology? Humans need to somehow obtain food, clothing and shelter, in this, our, culture. They must buy it, and when they do, many become tricked into thinking that as the consumer, they are needed and praised because they have the opportunity to buy clothes similar to that of a modern day pop star, a drink that will make them powerful, or a car that is intelligent and in turn, will make them look smart. Our culture leads us to believe that when businesses rely upon technology to ensure us the best service, we are cared for physically, emotionally and then mentally.

<pre><code>Humanity is viewed and compared in a few broad and generalized categories by businesses and commercialism. This is also how we perceive our technologies. Is our society treating the individual as a technology, a piece of equipment that has a function, a purpose, and can be made to work for another's intentions and gain? This type of comparison and speculation that has happened to Americans, and humans in general, takes away the power and truth of the human spirit. Technology is not unique in the ways that it functions, and we can and should generalize technology to allow understanding of the ways that it works and can be then fixed. But when we simulate our views of technology and humanity, don't we devalue what a child is capable learning, the sensitivities we should demonstrate towards one another, and the importance of an individual’s culture, family and personal life?</code></pre> <pre><code>With all our uses and misuses of technology, humanity continues to become more reliant upon mechanically enhanced tools in hopes of allowing less complicated living. Different Technologies are developed daily to satisfy the plans of those that head our society’s leading businesses and marketing industries. As our reliance upon these technologies continues, the foundations of life will become forgotten. Communication with the human soul and with each other will lessen as humanity speaks louder to automated voice systems.</code></pre> <pre><code>When we continuously look to and value the answers that Computers, car gauges, and TV provide us with, do we not look to technology for our truths, the final and correct answers? We speak, listen, think about and value the interactions we make with our machines as truth. We then compile these new truths with our morality, ethics, and values. Art, the expression of the human spirit, is no longer relied upon as a guide for honest individuality.</code></pre>

Technology subconsciously conditions humans to look to it for the answers. And, Humanity does not recognize that we as human beings give technology a high position of power. When we allow technology to become our guide, we allow technology to become a source for human truth. Allowing technology to take over our lives is simple, passive, and easily done. Preventing extinction of a trend such as this is difficult, and it goes against what others around us do and think. However, to allow the human spirit to die is similar to that of total, physical extinction. Life, of every kind, exists no more.