Maybe you don’t need to be reminded of who the Borg is, or even their standard greeting: “You will be assimilated!” It was one of the most frightening lines from one of the most frightening Star Trek villains ever crafted. When you heard those words coming from one of the Borg drones, it was far from a good thing. It was about the worst thing you could imagine.
For many, the Borg serve as a metaphor for consumer technology that has become an inextricable part of modern-day life. They feel like they are being assimilated a little bit at a time whether or not they want to be.
Some try fighting the trend by adopting a more Luddite posture. They believe they can reclaim more of their humanity by railing against the machine. But as you already know in your heart of hearts, resistance is futile. And here is why that is a good thing in the long run:
Tech Makes Some Things More Convenient
There are currently few better examples of technology adding greater convenience than the new Apple Watch features in the latest and upcoming version of the OS. Think about the most basic aspect of a watch. It shows you the time at a glance. Consider the additional steps you would have to take if you didn’t have a watch. Now consider the complications. How would you get the date, the weather, the time of your next appointment, your heart rate? With an Apple Watch all of that, and more, is as easy to access as getting the time.
The convenience also extends to communications. You can see who is calling without taking out your phone. You can even answer the call and have a conversation from the watch. You can read incoming texts and emails.
You can even initiate and participate in full walkie-talkie conversations with almost the same convenience as noting the time. In the case of the Apple Watch, fighting technology is fighting convenience. Why would anyone want to do that?
Tech Extends Your Abilities
We can only pack so much in our brains for instant recall. Even when we recall something, it is not perfect. And it becomes more garbled over time.
Technology allows us to store precious details with an instant and perfect recall. Have you forgotten what those shoes look like, the ones you were so excited about yesterday? Did you forget the brand, the price? If you snapped a pic, you have near instant and total recall.
What are the names and birthdays of all your nieces and nephews? If the information is tagged in your iPhone, you can just ask Siri. This technology is not intended to replace your memory. It is simply intended to augment it. And that is exactly what it does. You are smarter with your technology than without it.
Technology Can Save Your Life
Many people have anxiety over the everyday health hazards of modern life. To be sure, staring at your smartphone while driving is always a bad thing that sometimes ends in a grizzly death. Don’t do it.
But those cases are the outliers. Technology is far more likely to save or extend your life. It is almost commonplace to read stories of how a person’s life was saved by their Apple Watch, or by a child using Siri to make an emergency call that would have otherwise not been placed.
Because of advanced health tracking, people are able to more easily keep up with calories burned, heart rate, glucose, blood pressure, and other vital metrics that can extend one’s life. Variations of this same technology also assist our medical professionals in helping us live longer and happier lives. That doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.
That said, it is still possible to go overboard doing a good thing. Both Apple and Google recently announced new software initiatives to help curb phone addiction. Like pharmaceuticals, tech can make your life better in a number of ways. But always use with caution.
Tech assimilation is a pretty good thing when it adds convenience, extends abilities, and saves lives. There is no reason to fear the future, and every reason to join in and help make it even better than what it might have been without you.
