Introduction
Contemporariness and constant technological inventions are some of the most crucial human creations experienced until now. Possibly, narratives about utopia push humans to seek it through life by creating things that they feel the maker of the universe unjustly concealed from them. Many concerned individuals, especially psychologists and sociologists, wonder where the world is headed. For instance, social scholars already propose a sooner end of humanity if the current speed of doing things is maintained. The desire for an elite life without control makes people zombies, with machines gradually taking over human free will. Technology, globalization, and many other human creations are imperfect based on their adverse effects on the creators.
Arguments Correlation
Embracing a technology that advances faster than mortal understanding exposes humans to dangers and unstable living. Bauman (2005) reinstates such by referring to the present tech-based living as liquid, hard to contain, and regulate. According to Bauman (2005), liquid modernity is a civilization in which the circumstances under which the members’ acts revolutionize quicker than the consolidation of new routines of acting habits. Therefore, life and society’s liquidity nourish and strengthen each other, leading to the creation of a shapeless unstable abstract situation without a future.
Loss of self-identity, a very fundamental requirement among humans, is a major problem facing humanity today and in the future, courtesy of unending technological innovations. Reinstating Bauman’s concerns, Burkell (2016) states that people live and interact based on self-generated narratives about themselves, informing critical aspects, such as self-esteem and self-worth. Such identities depend significantly on the ability to forget part of human history that seems unessential in making one’s favorite story, which is impossible in the social media age.
Trials to enact policies and laws seeking to re-establish the ‘forgetting’ facet fail substantially. PlasticPills (2020) blames the problem on the elimination of self-will by machines that now run the world. Equally, Saw (2018) links the tech-dependent liquid modern life to humans’ disrespect for national borders and laws, threatening the creation of international criminals that no law will manage. Therefore, Deleuze (1992) suggests the reintroduction of the past disciplined societies to solve the liquid modern’s complications instead of struggling to pass unrealistic laws that can never deliver real results. Accordingly, modern life’s glassy nature causes significant concerns to psychologists worth every human’s attention.
My Position
My view concerning media technologies rhymes with numerous scholars’ observations suggesting moderation. Zahrai et al. (2022) propose self-control training and the establishment of appropriate laws to curb the misuse of online freedom by social media users. The world presently faces at least two revolutions that bolster each other, cybernetic and information creations. Arguably, the two forces exhibit a severer impact on the world compared to the twentieth-century nuclear warhead revolution that threatened to wipe humanity from the face of the world. The EU and America’s trial to enact laws to control media technologies remains futile today, while the young generation’s dependence on the matter kills any future optimism. Abstinence from social media, as suggested by some, is impossible nowadays, implying people’s continued hopelessness. The whole issue necessitates concerted efforts from all humans and the acceptance that people’s knowledge is limited for the realization of a real solution.
Conclusion
The highly celebrated social media inventions in the past days now cause real menace globally. Loss of self-identity and the emergence of an unruly borderless young generation constitute part of the tech-hatched present and future challenges. Computers and social media deprive humans of significantly essential control in life. Not even the application of laws manages the matter appropriately, revealing a dangerous reality where humans lack control of their creation.
References
Bauman, Z. (2005). Liquid life. Polity Press. (1-20).
Burkell, J. A. (2016). Remembering me: Big data, individual identity, and the psychological necessity of forgetting. Ethics and Information Technology, 18(1), 17-23. Web.
Deleuze, G. (1992). Postscript on the societies of control. 1990. Cultural Theory: An Anthology, 59 (1), 3-7. Web.
PlasticPills. (2020). Deleuze – control societies & cybernetic posthumanism [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Saw, S. K. (2018). Globalization and migration in the contemporary world order: An insight into the postnational condition and the diasporas. Social Identities, 24(3), 339–363. Web.
Zahrai, K., Veer, E., Ballantine, P. W., & Peter, V. H. (2022). Conceptualizing self-control on problematic social media use. Australasian Marketing Journal, 30(1), 74-89. Web.