iLife - A Personal World for All

Posted on October 17, 2007
Filed Under Society |

I keep watching the development of consumer technology - and yeah, use a lot of it myself. I can’t help feeling that there is something almost esoteric about what is occurring. It’s becoming a popular sound-bite in daily conversations for people to say something like; “Every time I walk down the street there is always someone with a cell-phone glued to their ear.” The thing is; whilst it’s most certainly now a cliche to say that - nevertheless, it is entirely true.

Technology is making us very insular in nature. I know it, because I experience it myself. We can create our own little worlds, and live comfortably within a personal bubble, deciding what to let in and what to keep out. TV has got to the point where you can choose what you want to watch when you want to watch it, and still remain in front of it for 24hrs straight. The iPod generation, allows for an unending stream of music of personal choice - no need to listen to the radio any more. The idea behind Web 2.0 is further compounding this issue, as people are customizing their slice of community and news sites, filtering out the stuff they really don’t want to see.

How many times have you walked around the mall and seen someone talking to themselves, before you noticed their bluetooth borg ear piece? There is almost something paradoxical about this, because this technology should be about developing collective culture. Yet isn’t it all very individualized? Not that there is anything wrong with that; at least not until you take a closer look at what this individualization involves. It really has little to do with developing and expressing your personality - and everything to do with consuming technology, following data-trends, and a pseudo form of expression though the media consumption and products we buy. It’s all getting very strange…

Shouldn’t this technology be used to create a broader cultural environment, rather than an ever smaller individualized world? Blogs and websites at the moment are leaning in both directions, some are only interested in further solidifying their personal bubble - others appear to be trying to create a wider perspective on life.

And incidentally, the post on “The Definition of Spirituality” is still open for comments. I am going to leave it a few more days before I consolidate all the responses into a single post, so if you haven’t done so all ready - head over to that post, and make a comment…