In his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan makes the claim that the effects of the medium through which messages are sent are more potent than the messages themselves. McLuhan also proposes that humans create technology as much as technology creates humans. Here, we will attempt to illustrate the nuanced, symbiotic relationships between man and machine. Ultimately, we will conclude that technology and humans maintain a compulsory and amensalistic relationship.

Technological advancement is human advancement, and human advancement is technological advancement. The two are so deeply enmeshed that it is impossible to consider human evolution divorced from human tools. By examining some advancements in communication technology, we will hope to illustrate how technology is related to progress. The telegraph is perhaps the most convincing example. Telegraphy was invented to increase the speed of which communication could occur. Requiring a high degree of cooperation to compensate for scarcity, the telegraph radically changed the way that news was gathered and reported. In the modern era, this process has been disrupted. The telegraph changed the way that we conceptualized information, our place in the world, and the meaning of “truth.” The telegraph is the first technology that truly connected us. Recent communication “innovations” show a marked departure from the traditional engineering design process. We are no longer looking for problems to solve, but problems to create. What problem are Instagram Stories addressing? Is it possible to live – or even to thrive – without an Apple Watch? It is easy to place the blame on profit-driven economics; however, we cannot ignore that the products are supplying our growing appetite for extreme convenience.

Culture is the means through which various types of practical and abstract knowledge are learned, maintained, and transmitted though enculturation and socialization. On one hand, technological innovations can create new cultural practices. Conversely, social media users are often drawn to and spread content that violates their existing cultural values, demonstrating the disruptive role that technology can often play.

Horrifyingly, just as our mothers may have passed down clothes, traditions, languages, and recipes, mothers may also pass down smartphone addictions to their children. Smartphones may also exacerbate existing vulnerabilities in mothers, which has the potential to cause “negative, attention-getting, and externalizing behaviors among children” (McDaniel, 2020). New technologies are creating new cultural norms, but they’re also causing new cultural problems that we will pass to our children.

To understand how our relationship with technology is evolving, we will discuss technology as religion. We have become reliant on technology in order to transcend mortal problems; however, the word used in consumer technology advertisements is “convenience,” “productivity,” and “solution.” A cursory web search of “Why convert to Christianity?” may produce an article that explains that “the freedom we experience in Christ gives birth to lasting joy and abiding peace” (Fairchild, 2019). On the other hand, if we navigate to the homepage of “Headspace,” a social media meditation app, we will be told that Headspace can allow us to “Find more joy,” “Get more goodnights,” and “Make every day happier” (Headspace, 2022). We utilize social media in order to create and recreate ourselves, often displaying what we perceive as most desirable and most perfect. There are also emerging technologies created with the intention of helping us cope with or transcend death. In 2020, a South Korean virtual reality gaming company partnered with a family who had lost their seven year old daughter Na-yeon to several fatal diseases. These kinds of recent innovations are replacing practices that traditionally made us feel more connected with our deceased loved ones, and there is evidence to support that they may in fact be disruptive to the traditional coping process and, ultimately, harmful.

The human condition cannot be divorced from technology. It may even be more fit to understand ourselves has homo technus rather than homo sapiens, the innovation and use of technology being so central to who – and what – we are. However, in the past two hundred years, technology itself has evolved beyond handheld tools. No longer is technology our hoes and axes and arrows. Technology is now the medium through which we live our entire lives, from health care to socializing to education.