The reference to the Transcendentalists in the above post
is, indeed, germane. For, the individual is losing not only solitude, but much of
his/her humanity in the advancing supremacy of
technology.
As students cross a college campus, their heads
are bent, eyes focused solely upon their phones, fingers working frantically to scroll
through their messages, send messages, etc.
During the
absolutely resplendent Spring in the South, for instance, there are so many beautiful
blooms upon dogwoods, redbud trees, forsythia bushes, azaleas, petunias, and other
flowers, as well as the fresh green of the lawns, yet all this glory of Nature is missed
by the phone user who plods through text messages instead. In their efforts to maintain
communication with their friends and family, they have sacrificed the delight and
restorative power of communication with Nature which would do much more for them to
relieve the stresses of their studies than any
machine.
At times, it seems as though people's essence is
only in the phone or computer where they sometimes recreate themselves by exhibiting
more bravado, etc. than they would vis-a-vis. And, herein lies the
question of ethics and morality. For, no inanimate object can be bad or good; as Hamlet
remarks, "only thinking makes it so." The phone may, perhaps, afford the bully or the
immoral person an expeditious medium for his/her evil intents. And, the cover of
one-dimension rather than the three-dimensions of reality, makes their evil easier for
them.
O brave
new world that has such people in it! (The
Tempest)
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