Humankind has always been selfish and territorial. We are the most intelligent creatures on Earth, but we are also very fragile. The power of nature over and the influence of another being on us contradicts with our survival instincts.
Unlike other creatures on Earth survival has a totally different meaning for humans. Survival for us is not just staying alive. It is taking control, making the life around us obey us. That is why we have never actually been content. We have never been satisfied with the things we are blessed with. Like a Pepsi commercial we have never ceased “asking for more”. That is why the questions that start with “What if”s have haunted all of us since our creation. Unfortunately this obsession got even stronger with the introduction of personalized technology in our lives. This technology has pushed us into individualism and turned our lives into self-proclaimed monarchies. We are no longer as patient. We are no longer as giving. We reached a point where we can no longer shelter anyone else in our private kingdoms. Relationships started to fall apart while marriages end up in divorces.
Walkman and its new generation cousins, the MP3 players are one of the best examples to such personalized technology. They have brought two things to our lives. First they brought more control in the sense that their users no longer had to put up with radio stations where there is almost no control over the songs played. Second they influenced individualism, allowing users to put on their earphones in any setting they wanted. Face to face interaction has been minimized. Computers and the Internet are other examples to this technology. New age computers have minimized our tolerance to patience by addicting us to “command and control”. Requests started to be fulfilled with just the push of a button. Discussions and enduring efforts are no longer required. The Internet tied us to a chair and brought the world to us. We no longer go to the supermarket to pick the freshest food. We no longer go to the shops to pick clothes or furniture. We are stuck behind closed doors, standing in front of a screen. Outgoing no longer. We are fully-equipped and self-sufficient kings of our own kingdoms with our only companions, the technological devices.
Most of us try hard to break the habit. We push ourselves to find a person to share it all with. Yet most of the time most of us fail. We slowly start to realize that the technological advances we created to serve us have turned us into the servants. They became our favorite companions. They made us believe that we only have room for ourselves inside our little self-proclaimed kingdoms. As Apple has ingeniously summarized it for all of us: We all became addicted to “I” and let go of “we”.
