Narrative and Technology

Our daily lives seem to be marred by an indelible mark caused by technology. We can’t go anywhere without first searching for our cell phones, setting the DVR to record our favorite shows, and checking e-mail and Facebook one last time before journeying out the door. We drive instead of walking, microwave our food rather than cook over an open fire, upon many of the other activities that have become so mindless and ordinary because of our constant reliance upon technology.

Where did it all begin? And where would we be today if none of the technology had been created? It seems nearly impossible to imagine a life without the extras, yet the concept of creation in the face of a void or a need is what drives our creativity and development of technology. To be able to comprehend our lives and the technology we consume daily, we must consider it as a matched pair: technology and narrative.

Technology does not simply arise on its own. It is first motivated by a need, and then an idea to regulate the need, and then a means to create the regulation to fit the need. Imagine the creation of the pen. Rather than continue to write in pencil, a writing implement that could be easily wiped away, or continue to write with a quill and ink, an implement that made writing a lengthy process, the ink pen was created as a medium of writing that would be a long-lasting, less time-consuming process. Stories could now be written and re-told, quickly jotted down in journals or in letters to be sent across the country; recipes could be written on cards and placed in a box, held safe for generations of safekeeping. Yet now, the pen simply lays on a desk, taken for granted in the world of e-mailing Word documents, one copy saved to a file on our computer and the other sent off in the vast nothing, only to be received seconds later by someone next door or halfway around the world.

Each piece of technology has a story to tell; it is our remembering the individual story and the role it plays in our everyday life that creates its importance. We cannot take for granted the technology that we have, nor forget the time that we had less. Technology is there for our use and the betterment of our daily lives; we should listen to its story, and remind ourselves of not only why it is here, but also how we can use it to effectively help ourselves.