Pocket Sized Morality

Emmy Jansen
MSMU Class of 2023

(10/2019) I have never lived in a world without technology. While I didn’t have the newest of everything growing up, it was a foundation of my education and I spent formative years learning how to increase my typed words per minute and use certain software. Most Americans my age can attest to this same elementary education. Middle school was met with the surge of Apple devices, our clammy hands gripping our iPods on the school bus. We continued this trend in high school, documenting teenage drama and relationships all over our Instagrams. Classroom teaching became paperless, trading books for power points and videos. Every club, organization, or team had a Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to go with it. College and job applications are almost selectively online, saving time and money. This is not only the life we live, but the life we were born into. So, when those of older generations ask us if we can imagine a world without our cellphones, as they always do, we honestly can’t. But I challenge the older generation with a statement I once heard said about the cell phone epidemic: "I’m not here to yell at your generation about being on your phones. After all, my generation invented them, and they were made to be used."

We live in an age where technology is rapidly advancing, and as the technology advances, so does the fear. Grandparents watch their grandchildren trade toys for video games and fear what it means for their mental growth and development. Artificial intelligence is created, and we fear it becoming sentient and destroying the human race. What we should be asking in that scenario isn’t, "How will we fight back?" but, "What makes them want to destroy our race in the first place?" Many of the dystopian novels that are popular on bookshelves involve the misuse of technology. From The Hunger Games to 1984, it is the technology that gives the oppressors power over the oppressed. Here at the Mount, every first-year student reads Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which is a fatalistic take on the industrialization of America, leading to an immoral society built on technology similar to those used in eugenics. The main question we’re tasked with answering is, "Are we living in a Brave New World?" Somehow, the answer always comes down to the technology and the meaning behind it. And nearly a century later, we are close to having the technological capability to do what Huxley feared of. While this fear of losing our morals in return for technology is present in many first-year students, professors, and people all over the world, I counter it. We have the technology to do almost anything, but we have the morality not to do any of it.

This speaks to all of technology, even something as harmless as calls, emails, and text messages. We have the power to use it and the power to misuse it. Whether we like it or not, technology has impacted every aspect of our lives. At the end of every chapter in every textbook I’ve read in my first month of college, there is some statement along the lines of, "Technology has changed ______." Whether it be mass weapons changing international relations, social media changing the peace industry, or household devices changing the way we communicate, technology has left the world entirely different than how it was before its existence.

Social media is the most obvious example but if you look deeper, you can see the impact technology has had on our communication and how we view the world. Twitter has replaced the presidential Fireside Chats. Battlefield letters and diaries are now long-distance Skype calls. Violence is livestreamed and war is in our living room. We are more connected than we have ever been, but we have never felt more alone. This, I believe, is the problem with technology: not the use of it by teenagers, but the isolation we feel as a result. We have the power to talk to virtually anyone in the world with a few clicks of a button, which should unite us. But the internet and social media are instead full of hate, negativity, and despair. Suicide skyrockets globally and mental illnesses are becoming more prominent in teens and young adults. And when we wonder why, the evidence all points to the screens. Is this a reflection of human nature? I don’t want to believe so. But you have to wonder, when our televisions are full of thousands of channels of meaningless talk that we don’t ever watch, and our throats are choking on words we can say to anyone in the world but don’t dare to speak.

With this new technology, communication has struggled to catch up. Nonverbal expressions, tone, and context are lost when you trade face to face interaction with the online version, even with video chats and pictures. While the internet makes things efficient and easy, it complicates even the simplest of conversations. The true meaning of words is lost, and we often forget that there is a human being on the other side of the screen. Is the existence of the internet entirely negative? Of course not. The mere fact that we can talk to people on different continents in seconds is powerful enough to speak for itself. Separated families are connected, long distance relationships can thrive, and knowledge once resigned inside borders has spread globally. A core trait of humanity has developed around the world, and it will continue to grow as we become more interconnected with our counterparts across the oceans. The benefits of technology outweigh the consequences but not enough for us to ignore them entirely. As we charge our phones, we should recharge our brains and hardwire our hearts to translate compassion into code. The virtual world does not have to be different than the real world. Instead, we should learn to combine the two. But there is a learning curve that comes with this new power and we must revisit our foundations of society to truly understand how it should and shouldn’t be used.

Yes, communication has changed, significantly, as a result of technology. But humans have not. As we adapt to the newest iPhone, we should learn how to adapt our humanity and morality to also fit in our pockets. Industries like politics, journalism, and others struggle to catch up to the ever-changing technology and we should grant it that delay. But we should recognize the immense opportunity we have to use technology for good and not let it be a meaningless luxury item. We, as a human race, deserve more.

Read other articles by Emmy Jansen