Medievalist Grousing

With every passing year, I become more of a "neo-Luddite". I resent the increasing dominant role technology plays in our lives, as it seems the relationship between the user and the used has changed.

Take television, for instance. I grew up in a religious sect that barred them to keep its members more easily controlled, and after I left that sect I started watching cable television on a regular basis. And then I realized I didn't like my schedule being dictated by the television set: I didn't like the emotional investment I sunk into shows (knowing I would enjoy them, and thus anticipating them ahead of them) forced me to watch them so I would not be disappointed. As I have grown more a student of philosophy, my disdain for television has increased: I dislike the constant racket and the insulting attitudes. I do not care for the ignorance and shallowness. I especially do not like the obnoxious advertisements. Now when I want to watch a show, I watch in on DVD, when I damn well want to. The shows are there for me, not the other way around.

The same goes for Facebook. Every single time I access the site, I feel a guilty twinge because I know I'm subscribing to the same addiction for information and attention as everyone else there.I do not like so much of my time being invested in a place, especially since its creator clearly profits by harvesting the information people place there. That is another great problem I have with technology, that it serves more the people who create it than the people who use it -- and the people who use it do not know that it is they themselves who are being used, for their reliance on the technology turns them into an abundant food source for the predator who created it. Economics is a big example of this: the technology of production is in the hands of a few who profit by preying on the many.