Hacking Kids
posted: 06/20 at 08:00 AM
Technology has always made things easier for us. And this is generally a good thing. I have a hard time thinking why I would want to pay bills though the regular mail system if I could do so securely online. Why wouldn’t I want to use online maps to find where I was going? It has also helped us detect certain diseases while they are still treatable, helped us treat debilitating pain, and probably increased our quality of life in a lot of other ways.
However, in all the good that comes from technology as it relates to our heath, it is important not to lose our humanity. This might seem overly cautious, but it’s an important thing to consider for a society that moves as fast as ours does. What I mean is getting ourselves to the point where we hyper-analyze everything we do to the point of paralysis, paranoia or worse - when we literally rely on watching computer screens and tracking data when a little common sense or careful thought might do the trick in a fraction of the time. The solutions to most of our problems involving health, education, personal life, etc., are relatively obvious once we are able to tune in to ourselves without the aid of technology. Losing our ability to learn through experience, to feel things (instead of being told what we are feeling) and to observe for ourselves can be very crippling.
Removing our ability to think and act like humans (who have been around for a LONG time) can have a lot of ramifications for the next generation. Businesses will capitalize on our wish to find quick fixes and shortcuts to healthy lives. And, as I said, some of this will help us. Unfortunately, businesses are not always the best at deciding which ideas help us and which ideas do not since they rely on what we think we need.
We can use technology to solve all sorts of problems. But remember that we need to help kids learn that we need to be human first. Kids who learn to know what they need for themselves - kids who learn what it means to be thinking, feeling humans - will be able to survive just about anything and come out on top.
For more about how technology is driving our personal habits, read THIS...
