My Thoughts on the Digital Age

“A man at work, making something he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body.”
William Morris

I love science fiction, especially time travel stories. I write them in my spare time. If I could build a time machine I would transport myself back to one of the more earthy eras before the Industrial Revolution, when virtually everything was made by hand using simple tools. I have always believed I would have been much more at home then. I would also find it irresistible to travel a few decades into the future to see what is in store for us as the twenty-first century unfolds. Obviously this is never likely to happen.

In the course of the evolution of human society it has only been in the last couple of hundred years that manufacturing the commodities that we need or want have been dominated by machines. In the earliest years of the Industrial Revolution very few machines were available for home use. Now technology is developing at an exponential rate and it seems every week we are bombarded with some new invention or use for an existing one. It can be extremely disturbing at times. But don’t get me wrong, as I am not a Luddite. I am not anti-machine or anti-technology. In fact some of my best friends are machines (my bread-maker, sewing machine and vacuum cleaner being among the top ten) and products of new technologies (I certainly couldn’t live without my voice recognition software, email or DVD recorder).

Even in the face of their relative ease of use, labour-saving qualities and the ability of new technologies to bring the world closer together, there still remains and intrinsic need in the human psyche for the tactile experience and satisfaction found from creating things by hand. A need that is often unmet in the course of our fast-paced twenty-first century lives. I watch with joy as my toddler grandson finds as much pleasure from moulding things from play dough, gluing bits and pieces of paper and fabric together or drawing shapes in the sand at the beach, as he does from watching the latest animated children’s DVD. Yet educational institutions are so bent on fast tracking even their youngest students into the digital age they are often doing so at the expense of many fundamental hand skills. Few primary schools, if any, teach basic sewing or cooking as a matter of course. Art colleges nowadays offer fewer courses in drawing, painting and sculpture than in video, film, computer-based design and animation. Many traditional trades like toolmaking and shoe making are all but dying out due to the lack of employment and apprenticeship opportunities. Where I believe the danger lies is not in the use of the new technologies as a means to an end but the idea that they might become ends in themselves.

If the technological advances we are watching develop at the moment are expected to solve global problems then clearly that isn’t happening. Millions of people are still starving around the world or fighting in their streets and many mass manufacturing processes are being blamed for a range of health concerns among the world’s growing population as well as environmental damage. Mental health issues are on the rise and the economies of a growing number of countries are on a rapid downward trajectory.

Culturally it seems that the more civilization advances the more likely there is resistance to sudden change. History has demonstrated the way groups spring up in all sorts of places expressing a desire to get back to core values of life to ensure a more enriched and sustainable future: one relying on technology but one where reducing household energy, consumption and waste; buying local; recycling, repairing, making and growing some of the necessities of life also plays a major part. It is not just the older generation with a nostalgic longing for the past who are resisting. It is also pockets of young people concerned about where society is heading.

I didn’t set out to portray all the negatives of technology and then sound all doom and gloom about the future. The Digital Age still has much to offer us, including the innovative systems of communication and the remarkable speed it takes to gain access to a global supply of information. It is just a matter of understanding where it might be heading and how we can happily and successfully fit it into our creative lives.

How do you feel about technology? Do you think it is helping or hindering evolution? Tell us in the comments below…