Quick thoughts - On technology
It’s what we make it.
Happy Friday folks! There are a bunch of ways to “see” me next week— I’ll be speaking virtually at the National Conference for Women on Wednesday March 5. Check out the packed line up here. And, you can get $50 off your ticket using my code NCFW50.
Boston folks, on Tuesday March 4th I’ll be at WBUR Cityspace for Cognoscenti Presents: Menopause — A New Approach with Shannon Watts, Dr. Sherri-Ann Burnett-Bowie, and Morra Aarons-Mele.
If you’ll be at SXSW, come see me at the She-Media Co-Lab on Saturday March 8th. I’d love to meet you!
On technology
Technology isn’t all good or all bad. It’s just a tool, and like any tool, we get to decide how to use it.
The secret to making tech additive (not addictive) is to embrace your humanness.
What does embracing your humanity mean? Allow yourself to feel; get excited; be curious; take risks; grieve; mess up and try again.
We are not powerless; in fact, we get to decide how we use technology to augment our humanness.
As technology advances, one lever we can pull on is our own humanity.
Lean into: Where does tech help you? Where does it hinder you? What’s the next small thing you can do to gain agency over your tech use? (Hint: this could be setting a boundary with your phone OR exploring a new area of tech you’ve been meaning to check out— and, doing it with purpose and intention.)
Want More?
Need some practical places to start thinking through your tech use? Catherine Price shared some evergreen ideas with The New York Times. Much of her advice comes down to one key point: we have to be thoughtful about how, when, and why we're using technology. We learn through trial and error, so when do we want to cut ourselves off from the possibility of our own human error? Think of this as collecting data, as opposed to make grand proclamations or hard rules for yourself.
Pew in 2020 collected a lot of quotes from experts on tech being just a tool. Here’s one from Srinivasan Ramani, Internet Hall of Fame member and pioneer of the internet in India:
“I do not believe that we can simplify the issues by asking if technology would be bad or good. The horrors perpetrated upon millions of people in the name of a science, ‘eugenics’ for furthering social objectives is very well documented. The good or bad is not in technology. It is in us.” - Srinivasan Ramani
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Hi Pooja,
Thank you for all the work that you do. Your writing about negotiating boundaries and identifying values has helped me a lot. I appreciate the thoughts in your post about having agency in how we interact with technology. It helps me feel empowered and hopeful.
I would add the caveat that many systems, particularly social media companies and companies built on a venture capitalist model of increasing engagement at any cost, are designed to monopolize our attention by preying on natural human emotions such as outrage, jealousy, and despair. That quote from Srinivasan Ramani is true, but not the whole truth. It leaves out standards and protections that we, as a society, subsequently put in place and are still negotiating – the Geneva Conventions for war crimes, the Belmont Report for clinical research, the fields of humanitarian law and bioethics. The problems and progress of how people interact with technology are not to be found only at the individual level.
I take away from your post that, yes, we have agency in our daily use of technology, but we should also use our agency to hold systems and leaders accountable. The political landscape is dire right now, but I’m trying to keep in mind that I want to advocate for humane standards in how our technology systems are designed.