Reference no: EM132356326

Please respond to an original post of a classmate ( which is attached) with a thoughtful one paragraph.

I am both optimistic and pessimistic about what effects digital technology will have on the experience of being a human person. For this post I will be pessimistic because I need to have a glass half full approach to what the future could hold. Smart and Smart claimed in this week's reading, " That after human's adopted fire and tools they took these new practices for granted or normalized them, and they became seen as simply part of the features of humanity. This is what we mean by the statement that we have always been posthumans: becoming human involved the adoption of new extrasomatic technologies (i.e. things that go beyond our bodies and their basic abilities and fundamental changes in our microbial ecologies" (p 80).

When I read that passage I thought about smartphones and the evolution of them. It started with land lines and then cell phones and pagers in the 1990s. In the 2000s we got smaller cell phones and limited internet and by 2010 we had the birth of smartphones. Do I think smartphones hinder the human person? Yes and No. I think being able to call someone, look up information, or get an email is important and saves lots of time in my work life and makes me more productive. Smartphones have become so common now that we are holding on to them longer and they are becoming more integrated into our lives. It is a tool that we use to stay connected with the world around us. These smart phones give the companies that made them access to our lives. I remember when I used to hear people call cell phones a "leash" for people to keep track of them but now it is a necessity. It sounds almost crazy to say it but based on the quote from Smart and Smart, " being human could be using a smart phone?" That is not something I would consider defining but when compared to fire and tools it makes sense and could be argued just as important.