Humans: Animals Who Work With Tools

Leigh Harrison
Nov 6 · 3 min read

I have a very annoying husband. Things just work for him. I don’t mean things in life. He has the same hardships as the rest of us. No, actual physical things work for him.

Now you may not understand why this annoying! Let me explain. I will be working with, or trying to work with something, be it a computer, a car, a hair dryer, or an egg beater. For some reason it stops working or won’t even start. So I do everything I can to get it going, unfrozen or unstuck. I reboot. I fiddle with all the wires. I turn switches on and off. I move things around.

This will go on for ages, because my pride simply will not allow defeat. Worst of all, I know if I give in I will have to call my husband, and that’s the last thing I want to do. Inevitably that’s what I resort to. He comes along and does the exact same things I was doing and within 30 seconds it’s working. Begrudgingly grateful, but mostly resentful, I get on with what I need to do.

Needless to say my husband is very gracious. He immediately comes to my rescue, fixes my problem and gets nothing but irritability and at most a thank you through clenched teeth. Come to think of it, maybe I’m the annoying one!

Our lives are dependent on machines and tools. But we have to figure out how to use them. As humans we create these things to make our lives more convenient, faster, easier but then we have to learn how to use these amazing new gadgets.

In my lifetime I have gone from using a pencil to wind the ribbon into a cassette tape to picking my song on Spotify and playing it through my Bluetooth speaker. I have gone from flipping madly from one page to another to navigate us through the streets of Johannesburg using the 120 page map book, to listening to spoken directions with real time visuals. Microwaves, cell phones, and computers did not exist in my world until I was married (and I’m not that old!)

Then just when we think we have the latest device figured out, it will almost certainly change. Entire cars are now 3-D printed and it won’t be long before we will have 3-D printers in our homes. The proliferation of sensors and availability of the internet has connected devices so that we have the Internet of Things. This means we can operate any number of things from our cell phones. Cars are moving towards needing to be plugged in rather than topped up. They are also not going to need us to drive them.

Using tools used to be a defining characteristic of being human. That was of course until we discovered chimpanzees using grass to draw up ants from holes, otters using stones to break open shellfish and birds using sticks to stab grubs. But we do top the list when it comes to the multitude, variety and changing nature of our tools and machines.

What this means is that we are constantly needing to stay updated and adapt to new ways of doing things. Because the pace of change is now exponential people are becoming fearful about this bombardment of new technology.

However, don’t underestimate our capacity to learn, adjust and even thrive in new environments. There is a playful aspect to technology as daunting as it can be which makes it more conducive to get to grips with. Besides think of everything you have already learned. Cast your mind back to how you used to do things and now how dependent you are on things you never knew you needed before they were there. Just keep a handy husband close by!

Photo by Brandless — Unsplash
Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade