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Too often it can enslave us and strip away parts of our humanity

The three front-page stories in a national newspaper the other day really caught my eye. One was about technology giant Apple Inc.鱿鱼视频app impressive financials, the second was about a conference in Montreal on how technology makes life better, and the third was about a massive study of Canadian workers that found we鈥檙e overworked and getting more sad all the time.

There seemed to be a thread tying these stories together. Every day we鈥檙e bombarded about the virtues of technology, but we rarely take time to think about some of the downsides. For example, we鈥檝e been told for decades that technology makes us more productive and frees us up for more leisure time. Not so, according to the 2012 National Study on Balancing Work and Caregiving in Canada, in which 25,000 workers were surveyed. We鈥檙e working longer hours (the vast majority of people are now working more than 45 hours per week) and technology tethers us to the boss and clients on evenings and weekends, once the sole domain of family time.

As I was thinking about technology鱿鱼视频app impact, an interesting e-mail dropped in my box. The subject line was 鈥淓instein was right.鈥� Perhaps you鈥檝e received it too, or seen it race around the social media circuits?

It is pictures of young people, each with his or her smartphone in hand, in restaurants and museums, on the beach and in cars. All the pictures show the young folks glued to their screens and ignoring nearby friends.

The caption after the pictures is a supposed quote from Albert Einstein: 鈥淚 fear the day when technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots.鈥� I say 鈥渟upposed quote鈥� because I searched long and hard and couldn鈥檛 come up with that exact quote.

The closest I could find from the great scientist was: 鈥淚t has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.鈥� Whether the originator of the e-mail took liberty or not with Einstein鱿鱼视频app words, you get my point: technology is not pure panacea.

If you have teenage kids, you鈥檝e seen them tap away not hearing a word of what you鈥檝e said. When I was a teenager, I wasn鈥檛 the greatest listener either, but today鱿鱼视频app teens take it to a whole new level. And it鱿鱼视频app not just teenagers. Almost all of us pay way too much attention to our handheld devices, sometimes even in church.

Social media (ie. online relationships through Facebook, Twitter and others) have restructured human relationships. What once was the dynamic experience of having a real-life conversation became selecting from a bunch of dropdown boxes to describe ourselves and our likes. As we become digital, our interactions are dumbed down so that they play nice with technology. We don鈥檛 even have to articulate why something makes us happy any more, we just click 鈥淟ike.鈥�

Things are changing so fast with smartphones and computers for the purpose to entertain us that it gives me an eerie feeling we鈥檙e losing some of our humanity as we reach to connect online instead of connecting one-on-one or in real-life communities. Will this lead to a less caring society? I hope not.

But as Christians, we need to think about these things because the teachings of Jesus are about our relationships 鈥� with family, friends, strangers, even enemies and, of course, our relationship with God. One need only re-read the beautiful Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-12) to understand this.

I realize Pope Benedict has urged Catholics, particularly younger ones, to embrace the digital world and the Vatican has even given its approval to an iPhone app that can help us with Confession.

But the Pope also said: 鈥淚t is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives.鈥�

At that technology conference in Montreal, according to the Globe and Mail, an entrepreneur from Kenya talked about a game he had developed in which players protect trees from illegal loggers.

This, apparently, has helped to change people鱿鱼视频app views of the practice in the real world. And that鱿鱼视频app a good use of technology; first by helping the environment and second by offering hope and opportunity to bright minds in parts of the world not as wealthy and privileged as we in North America.

But technology can enslave us and strip away parts of our humanity, if we let it. We should remember that the next time we鈥檙e sending the boss an update on a Sunday while our family is nearby.