A Call for Techno-Remedial Innovation

When Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger created Instagram, I don’t think they wanted to make 13 year-old girls lonely.

They wanted to create a fun platform where people could share photos, create engaging connections, and of course make profits. But Instagram has basically moulded the psychology of an entire generation. Young people are so attached to Instagram and other apps that the world in their device is starting to take precedance over the world around them.

The early tech innovators couldn’t have fully understood what they were getting us into. They couldn’t have understood the side effects the tech revolution would create. And we still don’t understand. Especially for young kids who never knew a world without an iPhone.

“Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of The Rings

I’m not saying that I wish for a world where Instagram never was, or that I want to join a breakaway civilization in the woods eating sprouts with perpetual B.O.

But we need to assess our current situation, and where we are headed. Uploading my consciousness into a virtual reality simulator to become immortal isn’t possible or good.

We need to innovate from a place of wisdom. There’s a chance we could use technology to propel us into an era of deformed insanity. We could continue to take ourselves out of our bodies and away from in-person socialization through nihilistic tech-escapism. Have you seen the movie Idiocracy?

We should innovate with a care for our future, not with the intent to manipulate people’s lower drives and vulnurabilities in order to make the most money. But the good news is, people are in such a bad state that they will throw their money at you for innovations to bring them back into balance.

The market provides. But the market players need to acknowledge the negative repurcussions technology has had on our reality if they hope to provide solutions.