Technology is looked upon as a great enabler in that it plays a part in developing many a great country, culture, and civilization.
If utilized properly, it has the capacity to make life easier, better and fun, keeps us more informed on issues within and outside our environment regardless of proximity among other things.
While technology has opened up a host of great opportunities and is advancing humanity, there are drawbacks, not necessarily to the nature of what it is, but to the way humans use it.
On the Tech Trends show, I recently had a conversation with David Adeoye Abodunrin, a behavioral psychologist who expounds on how people, particularly the young, can manage social media addiction.
CFA: Ade, glad to have you on Tech Trends today.
Ade: Awesome! I’m excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
CFA: Let’s start by understanding the role technology plays in today’s world. I mean as a psychologist what role do you see technology playing in today’s world?
Ade: For me, technology is the engine room of progress in today’s world. Every generation has its own zing element, the excitement, the in thing, that is, the most important factor in that generation.
In my view, technology is the biggest one in this day and age. Ever since Alexander Graham Bell, the guy who invented the telephone, made the first connection till today, the entire gamut of technology particularly information communication technology (ICT) has become the engine room of the biggest amount of innovation, productivity, advanced thinking, and all forms of extra homo capability that humanity has ever displayed.
So, it’s a lead factor of progress that I call technology as well as the entire communication spectrum that we are in.
CFA: There’s this issue- a reality that the distraction and the possibility of addiction in the use of technology. From your own perspective, how can this be balanced?
Ade: Anything that has use can be abused. You can abuse water, you can abuse your wristwatch, you can even abuse yourself.
Once something has a use case it has an abuse case. If something has the elements of being useful, it can taper beyond usefulness and become useless based on how much of that thing you consume.
Technology, as beautiful and as brilliant as it is, can literally become a curse, even with all its abundant blessings. It becomes a curse in the dimension of it being an addiction, for example, addiction to social media.
You can watch the full interview here.
