Will Digital Technology Domiante Us?

            “We can affirm the unavoidable use of technical devices, and also deny them the right to dominate us, and so to warp, confuse, and lay waste to our nature” (Martin Heidegger Discourse on Thinking).  As increasing numbers of people join the digital age we appear, at least, to confirm the first part of Heidegger’s statement. Technical devices are now imbedded in daily life. Of course, to some extent, the use of technical devices defines what human means. However, now well advanced beyond simple tools such as clubs or eating utensils, digital technical devices infuse nearly every aspect of life. In twenty years I have gone from a bulky $3,500 desk-top computer, with 8 Meg of RAM and a 40 Meg hard drive, guaranteed to be all the memory I would every need, to an Android “smart-phone” in addition to a laptop, 8 GB I Touch, and desktop with considerably more RAM and hard drive space.

            Have I somehow become less human by being tied to so many devices with the capability of taking me out of my immediate environment? I would like to think the answer is no. But I have to admit the difficulty of being in the digital age lies in the second half of Heidegger’s counsel. Can we “deny them [technical devices] the right to dominate us, and so to warp, confuse, and lay waste to our nature?” Someone I know was so averse to voice mail that when his cell phone provider include voice mail as a standard feature, he dialed his cell phone 30 times and filled up the voice mail box with empty messages to prevent having to respond to voice mails. I called him recently and when he did not answer, the call went to his voice mail and I was prompted to leave a message. I no longer heard “I’m sorry [exactly how a computer generated voice can be sorry could be a future topic] the voice mail box is full. Good-bye.” Had technology somehow finally exerted its dominance and dictated a change in the person’s behavior? Or had some societal influence necessitated the change?

            Heidegger goes on to promote the need for meditative thinking, arguing that [humanity] is “in flight from thinking.” He contrasts the deep, reflective, meditative thinking with the calculative thinking that “races from one prospect to the next. Calculative thinking never stops, never collects itself.” The challenge for digital people, at least from what I perceive, is to refrain from the indiscriminate adoption of the latest innovation, or the newest invention marketed with the promise of a brighter future. The challenge is to resist the “flight from thinking” and ask ourselves reflective, penetrating questions which guard us from “wasting our nature.” Perhaps, if the digital age challenges us to reach back and re-discover meditative thinking, digital technology will strengthen our nature as we move forward.