Are we smarter with our smart phones

With all the information at our disposal, do we control the ideas and things around or does the information through our smart phones control us.

With  the information revolution we were supposed to know our own intricacies better than before, thus knowing, owning and guiding ourselves well. But things seem to be very opposite, it seems with more information we are becoming more prone to external manipulations.

   

A more serious question is “does the voice coming from our brain cells truly represent the independent us or it represents the propaganda of a company, an organization or more recently  state that has been brainwashing us over a period of time.

With the advancements in biotechnology and artificial intelligence, it would become more easier to manipulate people’s deepest of desires and emotions.

To know ourselves, who I am, why I am here, have always been important questions posed to humankind from centuries. Favourite questions of scholars and mystics.

Who am I, the question has gained a lot of urgency today than anytime before, because there is a race between governments, companies, organizations, various political parties etc.

All want to know us to whatever extent possible. Because they want to hack us in totality, not just our computers or bank accounts, but our thought process.

If someone likes a particular type of posts , news items etc on social media he will regularly get similar type of stuff in his suggestions thus feeding him a one sided  version of various events, thus robbing him from any critical thinking.

Algorithms have come out from old mathematics text books .They interact with us, closely monitor us, what we buy, whom we met and they wont stop here.

Very soon they will monitor all our steps, even our breathes and heart beats and they will know us better than we know ourselves. Thus better capable of manipulating us , controlling us and ultimately using us.

Our authority may shift to them and we may just be watching like mute spectators or willingly surrendering all our authority to algorithms and why not if they can decide things and take better decisions for us. But this may come at the cost of surrendering our own existence, our body or the “I” of the earlier posed question ‘who I am’ to algorithms , big data, artificial intelligence and our smart phones.

With smart phones in our hands and logged to various social media accounts people spend a big chunk of time online in a self created utopian online world.

A world very far from reality, but people often mistake it with the truth about themselves. With this process we may never be able to understand ourselves better but machines will understand us far better.

We may have no control over our thoughts, emotions and desires and  may be we are like zombies glued to our smart phones all the time guided by various codes and algorithms.

drishfaqjamal@gmail.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

one × 5 =