Are we owning the technology we're creating or is the technology owning us?

To add to Craig's rather innovative response, there are a limited number of people creating technology that are absolutely depended upon by a much larger group of people.

We're getting to the place where no one understands the underlying procedures and activities that the technology automates for them, so if there is even the most minor glitch, everyone stands around as says, "the computer/network is down." and all work ceases.

And the truth is, we don't want to do things manually.

Interestingly enough, technology has allowed businesses to have less people doing more work for more hours with no time to enjoy leisure (for the masses), when the goal was to allow more people to be more effective with less effort, enjoying more leisure time.

If you are thinking about how involved we are with our technology the answer is technology owns us... but if you consider the things we do better but just differently then the reverse is true. So the short answer is: it's up to you.

I agree with T Scott. We need to assert ourselves, become aware, and decide. acknowledging our own part in the technology issue and what we might achieve and what we put at risk - Yes! a great question. A very "serious" question as well.
I've been trying to improve my ability to think and write clearly. In doing that I have spent a great deal of time reading Heidegger.
His essays "On Technology" highlight the dangers both for individuals as well as for the human race overall. He asserts that technology is seen in the light of what gifts and advances it affords us. Seldom do we consider what we give up or lose.
Yet, if we don't consider what is involved, we do then allow ourselves to be ruled by the technology. It is then that we are in danger of surrendering a great part of ourselves. We place ourselves into a situation wherein we diminish our ability to learn, to act, to accomplish things, and to think critically.
Instead we unawares surrender our ability to analyze and to complete activities without the aid of the technology.
No neither I nor Heidegger are Luddites. H demands that we take action and fight for our humanness
For the most part, I think we have surrendered our "being" to technology.
A simple example: Customer Relationship Management. Is it a business strategy or is CRM a technology play, an out-of-the-cloud/or, box pre-thought-through solution?
best, ngp

Technology is a servant and has always to be kept in its place. At times it appears to create the rules:- but look deeper and you find that it is only part of the process.

Gross Example: You have a car:- You cannot drive it where and how you like. You have to stick to the proper side of the road.

Rejoinder to Craig Brennan's comment about the supermarket: I do not agree. In the supermarkets I go to, after a second attempt if it fails: - maybe the card was read wrong the first time, the clerk manually enters in the part-number and goes ahead. Otherwise she enters let us say "Tooth paste - Colgate". A LOV appears as a drop down box and a selection is made regarding the type of Colgate toothpaste I was buying. This option I am sure will be available in your stores also. Ofcourse, if the clerk does not want to use some of the brains the Almighty had given her, then it is a different story.

Too much dependence on the output of technology without any application of mind is harmful. A then senior colleague of mine, in the 1970's (I was a raw engineer then) was narrating a "problem" that he faced in a US Supermarket: After purchasing goods worth around $55, he gave a $100 bill. Because of some "glitch" the system ordered a $55 return. No amount of explaining to the counter clerk first, her supervisor next, and the store manager could convince them that there was a problem.

"Of course, if the clerk does not want to use some of the brains the Almighty had given her, then it is a different story."

And I think you hit the nail on the head with that sentence. It boils down to the amount of trust we put into technology that determines our dependence on it. And sometimes it's trust to the point of "It's supposed to work. Surely it will work on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th attempt." Technology makes it so much easier to take the path of least resistance. Think of computers themselves. Being "good with computers" originally required thought and skill. You took a blinking cursor on a blank screen, entered code (regardless whether you were developer or user) and made something happen. Now the number of people that enter code are fewer, but the amount of magic the user can make is multiplied by an order of magnitude with simply a double-click. Knowledge of what's going on under the hood is no longer required.

The point in your last paragraph could not be more true. Right after I got married, my wife and I went to the mall to complete our registry. We wanted service for 12 on our silverware and ordered 4 more sets of silverware to complete the set. We were shipped 8 sets of silverware, so we later went back, receipt in hand to return the silverware. Despite our repeated attempts to give them back their silverware, they wouldn't take it because their system said that they only sent us 4. We had duplicate receipts in hand with order numbers (we were only charged for 4, so it wasn't a money issue... we just wanted to give them back their silverware). In this case, the incorrect output of a computer even trumped reality.

Never underestimate the irrationality of humans. Even the most rational of people (*cough* me) get upset with the DirecTV remote when it fast fowards through past commercials but cannot go into the future. The thought of having to get up and change the channel has been replaced by the thought of having to just sit there and wait for enough of a buffer to build up so that I can fast-forward through a commercial.

I don't know about the "ownership". I am quite sure we own the technology. But dependent...for sure. Technology isn't just scanners - it includes the car that I drive. If it stopped working I would be walking. Internal combustion engines were technology back in the day. People lamented the fact that we were going to move too fast, that the engines were too loud that all manner of illness and poor health was going to arise. Mankind always worries that we are on the cusp of implosion and that the point of no return is tomorrow. In reality, tomorrow is just another day. Besides, how stupid would I look pulling up to a drive through on my horse?

Steve brings up a good point regarding our need to define "technology" within the context of this discussion (which has been awesome and enlightening thus far!)

I suppose I was referring primarily to online & mobile extensions of technology vs. industrial, however, I can see how that distinction is really blurring as we continue to create "smart" products.

I can relate to Craigs story about he and his wife trying to return items from their gift registry. That's an example where common sense is trapped and cannot break free from the constraints that systems demand. I respect process, but I hate red-tape for the sake of red-tape, and I hate designing anything (especially my own life) around it.

Could go either way but it is based on your view.

I think if you view they as tools and ...
- decide if it is a tool you need,
- how you will use it,
- when you can put it down-you don't need it at the moment
- and when can you let it go as no longer useful to you

...you can stay on the human side of technology.

I have to share a few thoughts from the essay, "The Question Concerning Technology" - forgive me those of you who object. Those of you who find it compelling, put yourselves "on the way".

"...the essence of technology is by no means anything technological. Thus we shall never experience our relationship to the essence of technology so long as we merely conceive and push forward the technological, put up with it , or evade it.

Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral;

for this conception of it, to which today we particularly like to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence of technology."

If I am correct , it would appear, @Jason, that your initial question wants us to attempt to question our relationship to technology; and, the act, or process of questioning "builds a way", if we use language carefully here we can identify, define, and examine the relationship between us and the essence of technology - a Question I believe has more often been avoided or ignored completely over the last 5 decades.
Forgive the "soapbox", if it seems too . best, ngp

Technology wins wars. If you look at every major engagement since the stone age the better technology usually won unless there was massive force of numbers against.

Technology also opens up possibilities. The printing press killed the oppression of the Catholic Church. People are better educated, better fed and in better health than ever before. I doubt we want to go back to the old days when children had a less than 50% chance of growing up.

The internet is arguably the biggest change we have ever seen - ranking alongside speech, writing and language. It is bringing people together in ways Time Berners Lee (Americans can read this as Al Gore) never imagined when he invented it.

It is educating people and enabling communication, making them less resistant to oppressive regimes and central sources of information. It is bringing down governments - ask Gadaafi. It is opening up politics - ask Mr Assange. The global banking crisis was mainly because stock can now be held for minutes, rather than years, leading to a whole new type of "banking". But again, I doubt we want to go back to the old days.

A new world is emerging in which everyone has a say, not just the rich. Where everyone can be educated. Where good inventions and ideas from one part of the world spread instantly across the globe. Where there is equality of opportunity for all.

We should welcome all our new friends. Our new knowledge. Our new possibilities.
Or is this really about not wanting to share what you shouldn't have had in the first place?