Are we so in-touch that we’re out of touch?: 7 thoughts on what exactly technology does to us.

1. The phrase multi-tasking may very well just become “tasking.” To be doing something now is to be doing many things.

2. Rob Horning, of Popmatters conducts a very interesting exploration of the nature of autonomy and new media (Persuasion Industry's Assault on Personhood). Several things circled in my mind while reading this article: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Everything about Sigmund Freud, and thank goodness for Nietzsche!

3. I have always loved Maslow’s theory, but have always felt that human wants, desires, and needs, are difficult to distinguish, and are not hierarchical. They are confusing and simultaneous.

4. Here’s some evolutionary speculation: this tendency that we have is probably a beneficial leftover from evolution. Our ability to stray, to lose focus, could be a good thing for survival. Ambition for power can be quelled by the desire to take a nap—so that the ancient caveman tribe only has a few real contenders for power. Consider the scenario of hunting dangerous prey—not leaving the cave out of laziness could ensure that some of the tribe will survive.

5. Does technology exacerbate an innate tendency to lose focus? I understand that in our day and age, this tendency becomes exacerbated. It’s just so easy to have secondary and tertiary desires—and that’s just on one screen!

6. Important in this discussion is Steven Berlin Johnson’s book, Everything Bad is Good for you: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.

7. Before social media, the closest thing resembling the gigantic and organism-like qualities of social media was the stock market.