Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their
high tech devices, while driving, while walking, while shopping, while in
groups of friends, while in restaurants, while waiting in doctor offices and hospitals,
while sitting in toilets – everywhere. 
While connected electronically, they are inattentive to and disconnected
in physical reality.

People have been steadily manipulated to become technology
addicted.  Technology is the opiate of
the masses.

This results in technology servitude.  I am referring to a loss of personal freedom
and independence because of uncontrolled consumption of many kinds of devices
that eat up time and money.  Most people
do not use independent, critical thinking to question whether their quality of
life is actually improved by the incessant use of technology products that are
marketed more aggressively than just about anything else.

I for one have worked successfully to greatly limit my use
of technological innovations, to keep myself as unconnected as possible and to
maximize my privacy and independence.  I
do not have a smart phone; I do not participate in social networking; I do not
have any Apple product, nothing like an IPod, IPad and similar devices.  I have never used Twitter or anything similar,
or sent a text message.  I do use the
Internet judiciously on an old laptop. Email is good and more than enough for
me.  I very rarely use an old cell phone.

So what have I gained? 
Time, privacy and no obsession to constantly be in touch, connected,
available, informed about others.  Call
me old fashioned, but I feel a lot more in control of my life than most people
that I see conspicuously using their many modern devices.  They have lost freedom and do not seem to
care about that.  When I take my daily
long walks I have no device turned on, no desire to communicate, nor to listen
to music; I want to be in the moment, only sensing the world around me,
unfiltered and uninterrupted by any technology.

I am not hooked by advancing technology, not tethered to
constantly improved devices, not curious about the next generation of highly
priced but really unnecessary products, not logged on and online all the
time.  I have no apps or games.

Those who think interactions with people through technology
devices are the real thing have lost their sanity.  Technology limits and distorts human, social
interactions.  Worse yet, people have
lost ability and talent for actually conversing to people face to face,
responding to nonverbal nuances, or through intimate writing with more than
just a few words.

Consider these findings :
“Researchers from the University
of Glasgow found that
half of the study participants reported checking their email once an hour,
while some individuals check up to 30 to 40 times an hour. An AOL study
revealed that 59 percent of PDA users check every single time an email arrives
and 83 percent check email every day on vacation.”

A 2010 survey found that 61 percent of Americans (even
higher among young people) say they are addicted to the Internet. Another
survey reported that "addicted" was the word most commonly used
by people to describe their relationship to technology.  One study found that people had a harder time resisting
the allure of social media than they did for sex, sleep, cigarettes, and
alcohol.

A recent study
by the Pew Research Center’s
Internet and American Life Project found that 44 percent of cellphone owners
had slept with their phone next to their bed. 
Worse, 67 percent had experienced “phantom rings,” checking their phone
even when it was not ringing or vibrating. A little good news: the proportion of
cellphone owners who said they “could live without it” increased to 37 percent
from 29 percent in 2006.

The main goal of technology companies is to get you to spend
more money and time on their products, not to actually improve your quality of
life.  They have successfully created a
cultural disease that has gone viral. 
Consumers willingly surrender their freedom, money and time in pursuit
of what exactly?  To keep pace with their
peers?  To appear modern and
sophisticated?  To not miss out on the
latest information?  To stay plugged
in?  I do not get it.

I see people as trapped in a pathological relationship with time-sucking
technology, where they serve technology more than technology serves them.  I call this technology servitude.  Richard Fernandez, an executive coach at
Google acknowledged
that “we can be swept away by our technologies.”  Welcome to virtual living.  To break the grand digital delusion people
must consider how lives long ago could be terrific without all the technology
regalia pushed today.

What is a healthy use of technology devices?  That is the crucial question.  Who is really in charge of my life?  That is what people need to ask themselves if
they are to have any chance of breaking up delusions about their use of
technology.  When they can live happily
without using so much technology for a day or a week, then they can regain
control and personal freedom and become the master of technology.  Discover what there is to enjoy in life that
is free of technology.  Mae West is
famous for proclaiming the wisdom that “too much of a good thing is
wonderful.”  Time to discover that it
does not work for technology.

As to globalization of technology servitude: Is this
worldwide progress what is best for humanity? 
Is downloaded global dehumanization being sucked up?  Time for global digital dieting.