IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022 - 73

Commentary
Eradicating Entitlement to Reduce
Susceptibility to Technological
Enslavement
Christine Perakslis
School for the Future of Innovation in Society,
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281 USA
 What happens When our world, filled with
burgeoning stressors, is conditioning us to subsist
in a state of allostatic load (A-Load) due to chronic
over-activation of our sympathetic nervous systems
[1]-[4]? What happens when our world is also teeming
with technological goods and services that allow
us to self-medicate through coping mechanisms that
detract our brains with repeated dopamine releases?
What are the long-term effects of these self-enslaving
behaviors if, over time, they result in decreases in
the dopamine receptors expressed in our brains [5],
[6]? What happens when our dopamine-inducing
digital activities are stamped in our brains as the easier
reward paths to be sought and we subsequently
lose the drive for real-world activities [5], [7]? When
we allow ourselves to be habitually bombarded with
stress, hedonism, distractions, social comparisons,
and multitasking, we are negatively impacting the
chemicals in our brain. Are we becoming a physiologically
enervated technologically enslaved society
(PETS)? Are we allowing ourselves to be perpetually
tethered like PETS on digital leashes?
Physiological enervation
A-Load is an index of the biological wear-and-tear
on the physiology of the human. When the demands
of life outweigh our ability to cope, we experience
stress. Prolonged stress often leads to chronic
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2022.3173350
Date of current version: 14 June 2022.
June 2022
over-activation of the sympathetic nervous system
(i.e., flight, fight, and freeze response), thereby
forcing our mind-body to work overtime. Without
the appropriate buffers to offset this harmfully persistent
heightened state of alert, humans move into
the maladaptive state of A-Load. The consequences
of A-Load can include loss of resilience, physical
illnesses, emotional fragility, social withdrawal, mistrust/distrust,
anxiety, depression, and other various
physical, psycho-social, psycho-spiritual, and psychological
distresses [1]-[3], [8]. With this physiological
enervation, we can become diminished as
humans. We can move into hypervigilance, consequently
spending much of our energy perceiving
the benign as life-threatening, while leaving little
energy to identify and address veritable risks [8]. We
can become far more susceptible to compulsion,
dependency, and addiction [8]-[10].
We often identify stressors in our lives as overloaded
schedules, exams, car accidents, unexpected
deaths or illness, or civil unrest. Yet, we
would do well to consider dysregulated technology
usage as a subtle means for permitting beguiling and
brilliantly disguised stressors to infiltrate our physiological
existence. Research [7] repeatedly shows
there can be negative consequences for humans
relative to technology usage such as biomarkers of
stress (e.g., increased cortisol and inflammation)
[11] as well as evidence of physical and psychological
strain leading to fatigue and overload due to the
need to pay continuous attention to the volume of
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73
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022

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