Double Edged Sword

I watched a video today which I have attached to the bottom of this blog because you should watch it. It’s the reason this blog-post has been created, so perhaps you may want to give 5 minutes of your time before you disappear into the technology that holds you.

This video has a huge message and I am sure that each individual is going to have a mind-spark effect that will start off with an uncomprehending thought and then manifest itself into millions of miniature questions or ideas. For example, this blog. The reason that this was created was because I had a mind-spark that set off a hundred, thousand firelights coursing through my mind. One, that I caught, is a question and the question is:

Would we become emotionally connected and reliant on an individual who we currently do not admire or love, as quickly as technology has taught us to be, if technology was not an option?

When you first met the person who stole your heart, I’m sure you can remember the late night Instant Messages (IM’s) that were passed backwards and forwards until the early hours of the morning. I bet you can remember the smile that crossed your lips, or the way the cage to your soul was opened and an entire family of butterflies would escape. Can you still think back on the days when you would wait for an IM to come through, just so you knew that person was thinking of you?

Now, as part of the question I posed above, do you believe that each individual receiving those messages were falling in love with the person sending them; or do you believe that each individual was falling in love with how their mind read the messages and perceived them to be? Allowing yourself to basically fall in love with a ‘character’ your mind has created and who is feeding you the lines to the story?

If that same individual had no technology and had to speak the words which your mind read and processed, do you think that you would have the exact same reaction? The exact same emotions? The exact same goofy grin on your face? I don’t.

I think that we have technology to thank for a lot of moments of connection on a deeper level than even eye contact can make. When you like someone and said someone likes you too, obviously texting is the next ‘in’ thing to do, so we do that. When we receive those messages, our hearts are already quickened and our emotions are running on high, so who is to say that it is not our own response coming through when reading a text message. We become the other persons voice in our head, while we read the lines that confess emotion and we twist the messages outcome to be what our head and heart want it to be; we allow ourselves to warp the message by implementing our own tone into the IM’s.

Is that persons' message still being said the way that person intended it to be?

As much as I think technology has played a part in the lives of people (like me), who have too many emotions running through them during a face-to-face-confrontation and aren’t sure what the ‘correct’ way to respond is, I do believe that I would like the chance to meet and connect with people in an offline environment. Maybe I’d be able to test those social flaws and possibly, be able to manage and maintain my emotions and responses in a positive light. And, the plus side is, I wouldn’t be guessing about ‘what tone’ to read the message in because that person would be telling me and I’d know.

Technology is a double edged sword – we need to decide how to manipulate it to fit with what we want and not what it wants.

Post by James Ellis.