IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013 - 5

I was convicted by this paragraph. I recollect the
number of times I have told my own young children that I am busy with "work," and that I will be
with them as soon as I finish this email or that call,
while they are hanging off my legs. They tell me at
these times that "I am not listening." I retort that I
can hear them, and that I am listening, it is only that
my actions fall short. I know it is time to stop, when
they come over to me and place their hand in front of
my computer screen or hit the keys randomly on the
keyboard so as to bring my activity to an abrupt halt.
So I go back to thinking about "high-tech love."
And I reckon we have it wrong with our premise.
Today, I think we shouldn't be thinking brand liking
or brand love, but be defining "high-tech lust." Lust
can be defined as: "an overwhelming desire or craving." When we couple it with technology it is an overwhelming desire or craving to be "with" our device,
all the time.
I have seen first-hand and on numerous occasions,
people become strongly agitated or extremely fidgety, emotionally fall apart, and constantly crave to be
reunited with their high-tech device when they have
left it behind or it is misplaced. I cannot describe it in
any other way than there every thought is obsessed by
its absence. It is an acute attack, and it can go on for
hours until the device is found and they are holding it
in their hands again. Most of us, whether we like to
admit it or not, have experienced something of this
"separation anxiety."
Corporations know this; they see it in our daily
smartphone activity monitoring logs which tell them
about our behaviors. If you think no one is watching,
every time you pick up your handset, let alone press
a button on it, then think again. We are being sold
the idea that we can now wear this technology so
it is always with us and we cannot forget it behind
accidentally. Soon, we will be told we can have a
corporal union with it, and be one with these utilities, and have it reside inside of us too! We will
indeed become bearers of technology, not just wearers of technology.
We are moving too quickly. Desires and cravings if
not tempered can work to have negative consequences.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SuMMEr 2013

We are being locked into a life of electronic chains.
We might not yet be wearing GPS monitoring bracelets like parolees, but that too will come even if in the
guise of a pair of digital glasses.
The folly is in that we are willingly beckoning in
these times without thinking about the social implications for us and for future generations. rather than
lusting for our high-tech gadgetry we should be lusting for life - there is a difference.
We once complained of the working conditions in
large factories or even underground mines. Today we
have excellent lighting, the most advanced ergonomic
furniture, and yet we have become enslaved to the
mobile office. Just before day breaks we are working
on our computer or smartphone; night comes and we
are still there pounding out messages. The darkness
can resemble being underground.
The discerning rafael Capurro has written of this
information overload in a keynote speech [4]. He uses
words like: "burnout," "surmenage" (i.e., "excessive
work"), and being "completely exhausted."
When high-tech lust turns ugly it becomes
high-tech disdain. We can develop a dislike, and
even disgust for technological apparatus. We may
even seek in-part or total separation away from it.
It becomes the opposite of brand love; it becomes
brand hate.
Some parents regret the day they handed their
child an Internet-enabled computer, registered an
e-mail address or bought a smartphone for them. But
we should never be surprised at the usage patterns of
the younger generation. They are only mimicking our
behaviors and at even greater speeds.

References

[1] J.r. rossiter, "A new C-OAr-SE-based content-valid and predictively valid measure that distinguishes brand love from brand liking,"
Marketing Letts., vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 905-916, 2012.
[2] E. Kac, Time Capsule, 1997; http://www.ekac.org/timec.html.
[3] "First a technologist, then a leader among them, a Terman seeks
to spur humanitarian engineering", Stanford Engineering: Meet our
Alumni, Apr. 2010; http://engineering.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/
terman_lew.pdf.
[4] r. Capurro, "Medicine in the information and knowledge society,"
presented at Eur. Summit for Clinical Nanomedicine and Targeted
Medicine (CLINAM) (Basel, Switzerland), June 23-26, 2013; http://
www.capurro.de/Medicine2_0.html.

http://www.ekac.org/timec.html http://engineering.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/ http://http:// http://www.capurro.de/Medicine2_0.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013