Mete YaziciWhen I started to write the analysis chapters of my doctoral project on Digital Well-being, I came across a large body of work created by a great number of thinkers, experts, and futurists. When we look at the technology itself, we see a lot of mechanical details. For example, software engineers and designers mostly focus on UI/UX and SEO levels of detail. If we remember radios and TVs, it's like looking at the boxes, wires, buttons, panels, knobs, etc., versus the enormous opportunities these devices brought to us. There were negatives, such as reading less or having fewer meaningful conversations with friends, but we cannot deny all the positive changes of the last couple of decades.
So, when we look at things from the lens of long history, socio-economy, and the evolution of humans, we see deeper historical trends that shape a lot of new changes.
Among all the great thinkers who influenced me, it was Kevin Kelly, the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and a techno-futurist, in addition to being a writer, photographer, and a fan of Asia, like myself.
Kevin Kelly wrote,
In general, the long-term bias of technology is to increase the diversity of artifacts, methods, and techniques of creating choices. Evolution aims to keep the game of possibilities going.
As technology expands the possibility space, it expands the chance that someone can find an outlet for their personal traits. We thus have a moral obligation to increase the best of technology. When we enlarge the variety and reach of technology, we increase options not just for ourselves and not just for others living but for all those to come.
What intrigued me in these lines is a beautifully articulated link between innovations and the development not only of humanity overall but also the impact on individuals, each and every one of us. And this concept deeply resonated with me.
Another great thinker, Tom Lombardo, Director of Center for Future Consciousness, Executive Board Member and Fellow World Futures Studies Federation, wrote:
Technological evolution and the technological augmentation of human activities can be seen as an expression of the dynamic evolving cosmos... Technology coupled with culture is an evolution of evolution, perhaps the cutting-edge wave, accelerating the process of cosmic evolution. Moreover, technological evolution is purposeful evolution, guided by the various values, goals, and cognitive capacities of humans. Through our technologies we are purposefully evolving ourselves, our society, and even our natural environment.
Humans are co-evolving with their technologies, and societies as a whole are co-evolving with technological evolution. As we create and disseminate new technologies we are both transforming our ways of life, our values, and our modes of thinking, and changing society as a whole. As new ideas pop into our minds, often stimulated by present machines and inventions, we create more devices and gadgets, which in turn further stimulates our thoughts in an ongoing reciprocal loop of co-evolution.
Both of these thinkers whom I greatly admired inspired me to develop a forum or a new form of research center that explores how we can collectively play an active role in understanding and guiding the co-evolution of digitization and our flourishing.
References:
Kelly, K. (2010). What technology wants. Penguin.
Lombardo, T. (2016). Future consciousness: The path to purposeful evolution. Changemakers Books.
