Technology is the Enemy

500 Words on Thursday | Written by Lee Schneider

On Monday, in Big Sur, California, I walked in a river barefoot. The water was bracingly cold. I must have massaged a couple of special acupressure points because I had a wildly transformational experience. I walked out of the river realizing that everything that is wrong in my life and in yours too is connected to technology.

I hate technology now.

I’m getting rid of every bit of it right after I finish writing this on my computer. I swear, when the battery runs down on this thing I am chucking it in the garbage. Then I will be free, finally, free.

To be fair, it wasn’t just the river that caused this awakening. I read an article that said using your cellphone will make your head explode, and if that doesn’t happen, you will grow another head. That’s what Maureen Dowd said in the New York Times. Nicholas Kristof, another respected columnist, recently wrote that the minerals used to make the electrical capacitors in your iPhone, iPad and iWhatever are sourced by warlords in the Congo who exploit women and children and the waste generated by the disposal of our tech toys is fouling the planet.

But I’m not getting depressed about that, because I see a bright future where we walk everywhere. And we talk to people, really talk to them and get so close we can see the food in their teeth. And when we want to make a film we don’t use cameras and pixels but we just draw really fast on a cave wall using a piece of chalk. When we want to distribute music or ideas or anything at all we just hand it to somebody and tell them, “Run man, run like the wind all over the world and give this to everyone you see until you drop dead from exhaustion.” Man, that’s really exciting. That’s, wow, I, um… you know, I’m kind of rethinking this a little.

We camped out in Big Sur. The tent we used was probably designed on a computer. It was a brilliant design with folding poles that telescoped out of themselves and supported lightweight ripstop fabric that kept us warm and dry. Our flashlights were solar-powered. The camp stove was tiny, backpack-ready, but capable of heating a pot of water in less than four minutes. I didn’t really walk barefoot in the river, either. I was wearing Vibram Fivefingers made of polyamide fabric on top and a TC1 performance rubber compound for the soles. I doubt I would have gotten the same performance by strapping a couple of big leaves to my feet.

Maureen Dowd didn’t actually say your cell phone would make you grow another head. The reason I know is I used technology to check her quote at this link. I mangled the Kristof quote, too. You can check how badly, using technology.

If there’s any doubt how tightly woven technology is in my life, that doubt was erased when, back in Los Angeles on Tuesday, I was talking with the owner of a local yoga studio. It’s a donation-based studio, which means that people pay what they wish for the classes, and that reflects an ancient faith in the basic goodness of people. But he’s also streaming video of the classes live on the web, both as a way of bringing yoga to people everywhere and also to generate a revenue stream for the studio.

Technology is bringing us greater accountability (I can’t fake those quotes), speed of communications (people all over the world read this article instantly) and yes, the fun of scampering along in a river without smashing your toe on a rock.

It’s easy to be a hater, but it’s harder when you really consider what you’re hating. Is it technology that deserves our wrath or just the way we are using it?

You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here, unless you hate technology. Then you can wait until you run into me and I’ll tell you about what I wrote.

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