Technology can enslave us. Can it also set us free?
Is it time to start creating technology to 'think' more like we do?
Since its inception just over 20 years ago, weâve come to think of the internet as something other than real life, as if we toggle back and forth between the âvirtualâ digital realm and the ârealâ physical world. Itâs trueâââthe digital and the physical are not the same, but isolating the online from the offline fails to capture the fact that our lived reality is the result of a constant meshing of these spaces in our lives. Life is continuously shaped in very deliberate ways by the internet and new technologyâââchanging the ways we communicate, compute, dine, entertain ourselves, travel, and even how our brains are wired.
As such, sometimes it feels hard to escape technologyâs influence. The technologies weâve built in tandem with the web are deeply entrenched in how we interact with the world todayââââpics or it didnât happenâ; âlet me Google that for you.â With the tap of a button we can contact anyone around the world no matter where we are; we can navigate any road or off-road with built-in GPS systems in our cars and phones; and we can even obtain advanced degrees from educational institutions online.
Smartphones and other digital devices seamlessly connect us to even the farthest reaches of the globe, but they also have a way of disconnecting us from our own physical selves.
We often try to disconnect entirely from our devices, attempting to mitigate digital distractions in our lives by taking intentional breaks, âunpluggingâ and finding ourselves âalone in the woodsâ from time to time. But this mentality does us a disservice by attributing blame to technology itself and implying our own powerlessness over our devices. On a connected planet, we canât escape technologyâââwe have to manage it.
The mind and body mechanized
The Edgeâs âreality club,â an annual informal gathering of intellectuals coming together to discuss some of the most challenging questions we face in the modern world, recently took up this question:Â âHow is the internet changing the way you think?â This prompted a discussion between industry leaders, scientific researchers and psychologists abroad. In one response, scientific author John Brockman theorizes how new technologies continually shape our experiences and realities.
âNew technologies beget new perceptions. Reality is a man-made process. Our images of our world and of ourselves are, in part, models resulting from our perceptions of the technologies we generate. We create tools and then we mold ourselves in their image.â
We use technology to create bridges all around us, striving to connect everything, everywhereâââeven connect to whatâs going on inside of our own bodies. We use technological frameworks to interpret natural systems so that we can better understand the utility and order of complex things. In other words, we think of the brain as a computer, or the heart as a pumpâââsuperimposing mechanical structures onto our own, flesh organs. But, these frameworks limit our understanding of our physical selves to numbers and measurements.
Could we shift our thinking from this data-centric perspective and invest in technologies designed to help us connect at the core with our basic human nature? If so, what is our responsibility to be progressive in the way we think about building these products? In what constructive ways can technology interact more directly with our body and our senses?
All important things are measurableâââor are they?
Linda Stone, once vice president of Microsoft and an influential thinker in digital life, thinks that technology itself could bring us back to the body, rather than further obscure our understanding of it. She points to supportive technologiesâââan umbrella term for passive, ambient and non-invasive tools built to help us feel whatâs happening within our bodies.
Stone emphasizes that with âquantified selfâ technology we assume that what we can easily measure is what matters, and if we can measure behavior we can change it. Fitness and weight loss apps like RunKeeper, FitBit and Nike + measure data, such as height, weight, caloric intake, physical activity and heart rate. The operative theory here is that if we improve our numbers we will gain insight into our bodies so that we can take better control and manage them. But in order to work, these appsâââand the wearable tech that facilitates themâââstill rely heavily on a much less tangible metric: willpower.
In response to the âQuantified Selfâ movement, Stoneâs research explores how new technologies create new social behaviors, and how supportive technologies in particular could redefine innovation and the relationship between the âuserâ and technology. These emerging technologies could empower us to become even more self-reliant and to cultivate our own capacity to tune into our bodies in physical, mental and emotional ways.
In her speech at the MIT Media Lab earlier this year, Stone argued that in our obsession with numbers and tracking, we continue to move further away from the wisdom of the body. âTechnologies to Support the Essential Selfâ introduces a new way of thinking about technology as it relates to humans. Relying primarily on sensory input to connect us to our psycho-physiology, biometric computing can be used to support health and well-being. The goal is to develop products that allow more passive and ambient technologies using biofeedback from light vibration, pulse, sound, and temperature to enable our own conscious sensing and feeling. Although the primary relationship between the user and the technology is sensory, data is integral in mediating this relationshipâ âthe numbers are in the background informing the light, sensory experience, and vibrations.â
The budding ecosystem of âEssential Selfâ technology
In its nascent stages, non-invasive supportive technologies have already begun to emerge, as some tech companies prepare to build behind-the-scenes biometric data and insights into lifestyle products. F.lux, one of the first âEssential Selfâ technologies on the market, provides software that syncs directly with your computerâs clock to support the best quality of light at different times of the day to match your natural circadian rhythms. Computer screens and other self-luminous devices emit blue wavelength light. Spending time in front of this bright light at night interrupts your melatonin production. As melatonin is vital in regulating your sleep/wake cycle, your risk of sleep disorders and disease increases significantly when this hormone is suppressed. But f.lux doesnât simply dim the brightness of your computerâ it works in the background to automatically adjust the color temperature of your screen, to the effect of acclimating the light from your computer to the light in your natural environment.
In concert with self-tracking devices, supportive technologies could become powerful in combating illness, preventing disease and injury, and improving quality of life. Apple, Google and Samsung are setting the stage for developing non-invasive health monitoring tools, experimenting with sensors for wearable devices that could measure glucose levels in diabetics. In particular, Samsung is reportedly working with startups to build a traffic light system that flashes blood-sugar level warnings to advise the user. Still, small companies began exploring this type of biofeedback technology in wearable products before the tech giants came onboard. Initially built in 2011, the BioForce app for precision performance tracks an athleteâs heart rate variability through non-invasive, integrated technology to measure the bodyâs ability to recover from stress, shedding insights on anticipated performance and immune system function. The app analyzes heart rate variability in the background and flashes different colors of light to indicate how much stress the user could tolerate that day, allowing athletes to more optimally tailor their training to their current physical state.
From mood-enhancing software to life-saving products, the potential applications of these technologies are limitless. What if we could build personal UV-sensing wearables for the outdoors that would alert the user at which point their continued sun exposure would increase their risk of DNA damage? Or imagine an iteration of our own product, Umano, that could one day integrate cortisol sensors to detect a userâs stress levels to personalize a playlist, mediating stress hormone production and improving mood.
The past 30 years of technological advancement have focused heavily on productivity and communication. We have an opportunity now to take a step back and examine the role technology plays in our livesâââthat is, our living. As product builders in the tech industry, what can we do to promote healthy relationships with technological devices? Where do human desire and new technology meet in the product sphere? As humans, we crave experiences that engage our senses and emotions and empower us to live full livesââânot shackled to our devices.
