Odi et Amo

Odi et Amo

Not to be overly dramatic, but Facebook was my everything in ninth grade. It was like some new shiny toy that everyone just had to play with…all the time. People would pose for pictures during lunch just so they could get more likes from those same individuals actually taking the pictures. Teachers started banning computers from class because of our obsession. To be fair, would you rather look at chemical reactions or pictures of your crush at a party that past weekend? It was hard not to get caught up in the rush when half our lives were being lived online. For the most part, I loved it. It was exhilarating to see a new notification pop up or to do something daring like friend a person you had only heard of but never met. But sometimes this fun would turn sour and leave a lasting bitterness between your teeth. Like that time a group of girls started an online message about their friend who just wanted to branch out and learn to survive without clique. Or that girl who publicly dumped her boyfriend via status update. Facebook was great while ripe, but mistreat it and it would rot, scattering debris through people’s lives.

I feel like the world has a love hate relationship with technology. On one hand, microsurgery has allowed doctors to perform feats previously deemed impossible. Thanks to new technology, and a little thing called a titanium scaffold, we can now grow ears on the backs of mice… human ears… that you can put on humans. No, this is not a sci-fi movie. We can see and talk to family halfway across the world without moving from our couch. We can send a quick text to our moms after a plane flight letting them know we are okay. However, there is a dark side. More than one in three young people have experienced cyber threats online. Over 25% of adolescents and teens have been bullied repeatedly through their cell phones or over the Internet[1]. After a three month “campaign” of bullying, fifteen-year-old Phoebe Prince hanged herself in her Massachusetts home[2].

The question that has been posted thousands of times across thousands of different forums is: is it worth it? Is the pain and heartbreak of those parents’ whose children were forced to extreme measures due to online bullying worth the pure joy and elation of a brother whose only sibling got saved by the wonder of robotic surgery? No answer has yet been found. Maybe it will never be found. Just like the prototypes and algorithms that went into making it, the impact technology has on the world has many layers and countless facets. However, there is one thing all technology (thus far) has in common: it is inanimate. Although it seems like Siri is your best friend, she does not think for herself. She cannot tell you her hopes and dreams or her innermost secrets.

Maybe, then, we should be asking a different question: Can we really fault technology for the negatives that have followed innovation? Facebook itself did not write the disparaging and defamatory messages sent to Phoebe Prince by her classmates. Steve Jobs did not create a program on the iPhone that sends insulting text messages. Humans are behind these acts. The arguments against technology aren’t against the machines themselves, but against the people who operate them. Maybe Facebook does give a forum through which people can articulate their negative thoughts, but these thoughts were present regardless. Eventually, even without technology, the thoughts would escape the mind, attacking their intended victims with the same intensity. We need to reform the way people use technology, not the technology itself.

When I think back to my ninth grade obsession with Facebook, I can’t help but laugh at that naive blonde girl who would spend hours wondering who had seen her pictures, or her best friend who would call her immediately when the hottest boy in school made a status update. For the most part, technology manifests itself in harmless acts like these, furthering the musings of teenage girls. When these musings turn to attacks, technology shoulders the blame and the criticism, taking attention away from the real culprits: the people.