Torn. Absolutely torn.
Because technology is starting to frighten me. With all its advances and nefarious uses and the fact that our microwaves are now snickering at us when they see what we’re wearing each morning.
But there’s some cool stuff, too. Some of it seems awfully tempting. Like the news that tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is launching a company with the goal of implanting electrodes into our brains. One day, this could help us do all manner of wonderful things, like speed up how we process and analyze information. You know, like finding the most adorable cat videos on the Internet without ever typing on a keyboard. That way we can have our hands free to eat cheese puffs!
I’m terrified and intrigued by this idea. The cool part is how such a chip might help my feeble little mind work better. Like remember names. I’m possibly one of the worst name-remembers in history. I once looked in the mirror and had to ask myself, “So, one more time, tell me your name?”
How awesome would it be to have a neural implant in my brain that gently reminds me with tender nudges who people are: “ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME!?! IT’S ED!!! HOW HARD IS THAT TO REMEMBER?!?”
I could totally go for that.
Or help remember birthdays. Or better yet, what to get people for their birthdays. Or what not to get people. (“YOU DON’T BUY YOUR WIFE SALAD TONGS!!!”) Or write this column while I sleep-in. Could an electrode help us remember all the wonderful memories in life as if they were yesterday: our wedding days, the birth of children, the time I won a thousand tickets in Skee Ball?
But the idea is terrifying, too. Do we really need to speed up our brains? Try to make them more effective? Process more? Honestly, I would like to slow mine down.
I started the year pledging that I would use all my little digital devices and gadgets less. That I wouldn’t check my phone for new emails every 15 seconds. I set parameters on when I would, and the rest of my time would be spent on important things like actual work, enjoying life and thinking about what’s for lunch.
It was an interesting experiment … and it failed miserably within days. It wasn’t long before I was back to checking email relentlessly, all to see if something critical had come through.
But in the time I freed myself from technology’s tightening grasp, I felt … well … free. Unbound by the call of digital devices. I was more present in everything I did. I worked smarter, and probably more effectively. I wasn’t so mentally exhausted by the constant onslaught of information. I, not technology, controlled me. And life was good. I think I would like more of that.
Chips in my brain? Maybe I’ll just carry around cue cards with pictures of people on them, and keep looking up cat videos the old fashioned way.