1 Abstract Idea

Is it possible for technology to surpass the natural evolution of the human race? These are questions that have commonly been raised in movies such as The Terminator, I, Robot, etc., but can a phenomenon like this actually happen?

There is a viral video that has recently spread amongst the nation of a 1-year old girl riffling through applications on an iPad. She maneuvers through the different screens effortlessly as if she has been using Apple products since the 1^st generation iPhone. Her father then sets a magazine in front of her to see how she reacts to a non-interactive “tablet.” His daughter grows increasingly frustrated as she tries to swipe and click the different advertisements to no avail. The video ends with the words “For my 1 year old daughter, an iPad is a magazine that does not work. It will remain so for her whole life. Steve Jobs has coded a part of her OS.”

Regardless of any physical human traits that may or may not be jeopardized by the advancement of technology, such as an entire new generation with eye problems and carpal tunnel, we now occupy an interesting moment in the history.  I like to think of this time in relation to the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell who deconstructed the notion of success as more than just hard work, but as a combination of a number of variables that act in one’s favor, specifically the idea of timing.  The older people that now run companies are now out of touch with this new, over stimulated generation of people. They are constantly trying to learn how we think, the ways we use social media, and essentially how to use the new gadgets that seem to be spit out by Apple and Android every minute. We are in an era of innovation where everyone born between the late 80s and early 90s are basically the last ones to have had a childhood highlighted by the use of the imagination. We were the last ones who were told more often than not to “Go outside and play” and explore the creative industries of our mind instead of having a parent set an iPad in our face.  The interesting thing that separates us from the generation prior to us is that we are still young enough to have a firm grip on the use and direction of technology in its current state. The movers and shakers of tomorrow will be the ones that will be able to utilize both the real world and the technological world effectively.  Am I the only one innately curious, yet slightly fearful of what tomorrow brings? A world completely obsessed with the imitation of life and nature instead of enjoying the real thing. A world where we have to take online classes to learn what it means to be human.

This is all speculation of course, but one thing that I realized is that in the age of information and technology, where you can ask your phone, “What is the meaning of life?” and your phone will answer you verbally in seconds, the term “survival of the fittest” has been transformed into the “survival of the least distracted.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk