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Maybe I'm missing the purpose of the article, but I am responding to how I interpreted it. What will our future be like if we all focus our lives around little

Maybe I'm missing the purpose of the article, but I am responding to how I interpreted it. What will our future be like if we all focus our lives around little boxes in our hands rather than the vast open spaces around us? Perhaps we should invent a future where the technology are the tools we use to enhance our life, not control our life. In Star Trek, people weren't addicted to PADDs or spend every living moment in the Holo Deck. In fact the episodes where technology controlled people, we recognized the technology as evil. Invent something to enhance our lives, not control them.

mgkimsal 15y ago
Who are you to be telling someone their life isn't being 'enhanced' by their usage of whatever tools/sites/technology they choose?
pyre 15y ago
If someone is 'addicted' to Facebook, is technology really controlling them, or is it more that they have lost control of themselves? Are they really addicted to technology or just addicted to hanging out with their friends (which technology -- e.g. smartphones + Facebook -- enables to happen anywhere, not just when you're able to schedule time to meet in person). Also: 1. Perhaps Star Trek is an unrealistic prediction of how man will interact with technology in the future. 2. Perhaps your (and the author's) view of things is skewed by selection bias. I.e. you're around people that are more 'addicted' to technology than others. 3. You're forgetting that in Star Trek the human race has had a sort of epiphany centered around first contact with an alien species.
- korussian 15y ago
  Also remember that in Star Trek the most ubiquitous technology was the pin-on-walkie-talkie, during use of which people would look up at the ceiling. It was a show defined by the 80's/90's, with several plotlines that could have been resolved by someone having an iPhone in their pocket, or by the Enterprise having smart drones. There were only a couple of episodes that dealt with holodeck addiction, and just one or two in which the holodeck was used to its full potential: as a reconfigurable-on-the-fly work space that can tie into ship-systems, and either show or replicate any hardware or display you describe verbally. If the holodeck were a real thing, I would rarely come out of there. I'd just make real friends inside other holodecks, and we'd spend our lives learning and creating stuff. It would be an enormous social problem. 60's StarTrek tech doesn't count. Although Kirk's stylus/pad for signatures is not unlike the UPS guy's… and I'll bet Uhura's metallic ear slab was bluetooth.
  - korussian 15y ago
    Sorry, apparently a single star makes everything after it italic… until a later star. Can't edit/delete. My bad.
DennisP 15y ago
The addicts are in the Borg cubes.

mgkimsal 15y ago

Who are you to be telling someone their life isn't being 'enhanced' by their usage of whatever tools/sites/technology they choose?

pyre 15y ago

If someone is 'addicted' to Facebook, is technology really controlling them, or is it more that they have lost control of themselves? Are they really addicted to technology or just addicted to hanging out with their friends (which technology -- e.g. smartphones + Facebook -- enables to happen anywhere, not just when you're able to schedule time to meet in person). Also: 1. Perhaps Star Trek is an unrealistic prediction of how man will interact with technology in the future. 2. Perhaps your (and the author's) view of things is skewed by selection bias. I.e. you're around people that are more 'addicted' to technology than others. 3. You're forgetting that in Star Trek the human race has had a sort of epiphany centered around first contact with an alien species.

korussian 15y ago
Also remember that in Star Trek the most ubiquitous technology was the pin-on-walkie-talkie, during use of which people would look up at the ceiling. It was a show defined by the 80's/90's, with several plotlines that could have been resolved by someone having an iPhone in their pocket, or by the Enterprise having smart drones. There were only a couple of episodes that dealt with holodeck addiction, and just one or two in which the holodeck was used to its full potential: as a reconfigurable-on-the-fly work space that can tie into ship-systems, and either show or replicate any hardware or display you describe verbally. If the holodeck were a real thing, I would rarely come out of there. I'd just make real friends inside other holodecks, and we'd spend our lives learning and creating stuff. It would be an enormous social problem. 60's StarTrek tech doesn't count. Although Kirk's stylus/pad for signatures is not unlike the UPS guy's… and I'll bet Uhura's metallic ear slab was bluetooth.
- korussian 15y ago
  Sorry, apparently a single star makes everything after it italic… until a later star. Can't edit/delete. My bad.

DennisP 15y ago

The addicts are in the Borg cubes.