Gadgets and Authentic Human Relations

There is something to be feared about in today’s world. With the advent of online social media, we have seen how human relations have been diminished by our harmful infatuation with technological gadgets. More children are hooked into computer games. While these ultra-modern tools are important for us to be connected to people, there is a great danger in terms of people being controlled by gadgets.

It has tremendous consequences to the kind of education our children get. With too much exposure online, they become potential victims of bullying and cyber-crimes, including cyber-pornography, a reality recently discovered in Cordova, Cebu. Vicious elements are on the rise and are ready to take advantage of the innocent. As such, while our government grapples with various maddening corruption issues, parents should channel their energies toward good parenting. It is high time to bring back Christian values, which the internet has banished somehow.

In a 2014 movie, with the title HER, the character of Theodore, a divorcee, claims to have fallen in love with “Samantha”, a computer Operating System (OS). Theodore argues that it is a new kind of relationship since falling for this hyper-intelligent “being” means that the relationship is beyond space and time, for “Samantha” does not have any physical body, so she can be everywhere and anywhere.  She has feelings or unsettling feelings, Theodore would like to say.

The Social Penetration Theory by Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor explains that “interpersonal relationships evolve in a gradual and predictable fashion. This theory asserts that self-disclosure is the primary way that superficial encounters progress into intimate relationships.” Intimacy, in effect, makes one vulnerable, for the individual begins to reveal the deeper part of one’s person. Like that of the layers of an onion bulb, this theory tells us that people go through certain stages in forming closer ties with others.

From an existential end, the essence of any true relationship rests upon person-to-person encounters. Any technology is nothing but a medium to make possible that contact with a real individual. A person is an embodied being, which means that his or her emotions are real insofar as these are expressions of bodily needs. When one feels hungry or thirsty, he or she needs something that is tangible in order to satisfy this need. To be truly committed to others, we have to move beyond the walls of the digital age.

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the availability of the Samaritan to the surprise of the encounter means that he is not bound by any role to play. He acts on the basis of his being a person-for-others. What technology has done nowadays is uproot us from this basic humanness. The medium, online social media in this case, now becomes some sort of a requirement for the inter-human. Since the poor do not have access to the internet, the more our young generation is lured away from them. Our Christian values teach us to be with the poor, to live and suffer with them, just as Christ did.

Real relationships call upon us to understand what it means to be with others. For example, people encounter distressing situations,or more often than not, also feel the sudden pain of betrayal and hurt. No amount of hours spent on computer games can erase this pain. Thus, our modern day attachment to gadgets may well represent the presence of superficial relationships. Any gadget is not a “she” but an “it”.

Computers do not have feelings. We cannot really fall in love with a gadget. It is not love but manipulation. Love requires caring for someone and some form of reciprocity. Machines cannot become weary, bored or get tired listening to some useless stories. At the end of the day, we will still seek the presence of real people. This is what gives life its real sense of purpose and meaning.

Finally, nothing inspires more than the young Bro. Richie Fernando, SJ, who while serving in Cambodia, sacrificed his life so that others might live. His immortal words: “I wish, when I die, people remember not how great, powerful or talented I was, but that I served and spoke for the truth, I gave witness to what is right, I was sincere in all my works and actions, in other words, I loved and followed Christ.”

Writers:
Jeresa May C. Ochave is a writer at the Centrist Democracy Political Institute.
Christopher Ryan B. Maboloc is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Ateneo de Davao University.