Are We Creating Technology or is Technology creating us?

We are surrounded by technology in such a vast way that we can no longer avoid it.  It becomes part of our everyday lives, regardless of our opinions on it.  Technologies such as Facebook and other forms of social media have advanced our reaches of communication; we can connect with more people and share more ideas than was possible ever before.  We have the sense that WE create technology to aid us in our everyday lives; don't we come up with ideas to make life simpler and then physically create the devices?  As was stated in Langdon Winner's "Technologies as Forms of Life," Most of the reasons that we create new technologies is based off of our typical activity.  Humans have always eaten, walked, and worked along with so many other basic actions; the technologies that we produce are, in effect, to help us succeed and become more efficient in these very old and basic tasks.  Although, in certain cases, the technology that was created to do one thing ends up working better for a task that it was not created for; this produces unexpected results that can lead to the alteration of basic human behavior.  We may not notice the evolution of our actions due to the device or technology becoming integrated into our lives.  As we discussed in class, humans tend not to pay much attention to the magnificent machines that we have at our disposal.  When you ride in a car, you don't typically think, "Wow, it is so amazing that I am riding in a metal box that is able to travel so fast with such little effort."  When we get on our smartphones, we don't get excited about what a cool device it is that we hold in our hands that can provide us with more information than the human brain can hold.  I know that I, personally, go through life without paying close attention to how the technology of today has changed my behavior throughout the years.

I am very interested in how technology has changed our communication abilities.  We have phones, social media, and Skype as well as so many other communication technologies that affect our ability to connect with others.  The creation of these devices have indeed increased communication abilities and greatly benefited the majority of the world through their ease of use and the lightning speed at which they travel.  Humans can contact anyone that they need to, no matter how many miles apart that they are, and that is really an amazing accomplishment for society.  Although, I must say that I also believe that technology has created a void when is comes to face to face communication.  If we look back to the old days, people ate dinner together at the table and talked to one another about anything and everything.  Storytelling was a major form of entertainment and communication.  Humans were connected to one another through spoken word and physical actions. In the present, we communicate mostly through text, email, or social media.  When families eat dinner, very rarely do they sit together without the television on and speak to one another.  We entertain ourselves by watching movies, playing video games, or being on our phones.  Don't get me wrong, I do think that technology has brought forth a major advancement in communication, but I think that it has caused some people to "sleepwalk" through their lives.  More people consider themselves socially awkward during these technological times than ever before.  Maybe it's because they don't get as much practice communicating in a personal face to face way.  Humanity has much to improve when it comes to physical communication, although we have mastered the art of technological communication.