Are we controlling technology, or is technology controlling us?

Sitting at the dinner table with my family, my attention begins to gravitate towards my smartphone. Notifications from several social media platforms, emails, etc. are waiting to be opened, and I cannot possibly wait until I am done with dinner to check these “alerts” (put in quotations, because 90% of the time these notifications are not urgent). Observing dinner time at the houses of my friends, I see that they also succumb to the curiosity of notifications, and I start to notice a pattern. It becomes clear that technology is absolutely influencing life, even in situations where technology is not required. Therefore, a very real human-technology relationship is evident. Kevin Kelly explores this relationship in his book “What Technology Wants”

Kevin Kelly argues that technology is, in fact, an extension of life. He continuously supports the idea that technology will constantly progress and introduce new applications and services that intertwine with and affect human relationships. He does give some independence to humans though; he claims that although humans cannot stop the evolution and advancement of technology, as it is a force on its own, humans are able to take advantage of beneficial technologies and disregard those that are harmful. He discusses these concepts and related topics in the interview below: