A Leaf in My Shoe

As I sat around my room today thinking on what to how to write about our much beloved term “Becoming Digital,” I became curious to the fact of how many things in my room were not produced through digital means. The first thing that caught my eye was a notice about MIT housing that I had gotten in the mail. Nope, I couldn’t include the paper. It was not only a product of a document that had been fed through a digital printer, but the paper itself had probably been cut by a machine governed by a program and sensors that made only the most precise 8½” by 11” cuts. Next, I tried looking at my desk. Wood equals natural, right? Not in this case. The pieces were probably also cut in a manufacturing plant under similar conditions and coated in a sealant that I’m sure was not hand-mixed. After becoming a little discouraged at the possibility of not finding a way to escape the span of modern technology even in my own room, I glanced at the floor. A single gold, red, and brown leaf was caught in between the laces on my shoe from walking through a courtyard. This leaf I realized was the only thing in my small home that was truly natural. What could this mean? Have I truly lost touch with nature? Have I thrown down the gauntlet on being an organic being and seek to become immersed in a state of pure technology? It doesn’t mean this at all.

It has become commonplace for the belief that technology is slowly overtaking us, replacing our means of transportation, communication, education, and trade; in one sense, this is true. Technology does seem to be amplifying our standard of living by improving these qualities. However, am I less human because of it? Physically, no, I’m still me, an oxygen-breathing being that gets his energy from the food he eats instead of the socket in the wall. Psychologically, this is harder to prove, but the end result is still the same.

When becoming accustomed to new technology, people tend to regard it as an option to everyday problems as it intended for. For example, a person in the 1970’s needs to get a message to a co-worker on the other side of the state and needs a response in the next week. He has several options, including (a) drive across the state to deliver the message face-to-face while wasting time and money to operate a vehicle, (b) write a letter (1980’s = snail mail) and hope that the USPS is efficient enough to get a message and reply in time, or (c) call the co-worker on the telephone with little effort or cost and get a response within the length of the call. Obviously, option (c) will probably be chosen because it the most efficient solution to the problem. People today are no different. The advent of digital technology has for the most part improved the efficiency at which our problems can be solved so we tend to cling to them. E-mails are sent out in seconds; cell phones are mostly universal; and the combination of scanners, copiers, and printers renders almost every image or piece of text available for anyone. The question that remains is, “Are people dependent on digital technology?” No, not unless we force ourselves to be. Creating otherwise-impossible deadlines for projects that require digital tech is just part of the human progression of efficiency. If we can do it faster for little cost, why not do it?

Am I digital? No. I am an organic being. Until cellular make-up can be decomposed into binary code and implemented as such, this statement is true. Ideas I produce may be saved, stored, or altered on a computer. My actions may be acted out by the pressing of buttons that create electronic signals, but they are still based on natural thought. At the end of the day, I am more like that leaf than the machine on which I type.