When do we stop using technology and start abusing it?

Those of you who are following my blog might know, that when speaking about science fiction I often voice that a certain vision of the future is a possible version of what would happen if we let our obsession with technology go too far. I recently binge watched the series "The One", where a company promises you to meet your one true love through DNA testing. The show wasn't particularly about the science fiction part, but it pointed out the dangers, as many people in happy relationships would take the tests anyhow and got insecure about their partners. The essential question remains:  

Do we have to use every sort of technology just because we can?

Let's start with the example from the show: Dating and love. In the present, dating is harder than ever if you ask me. We live fast lives and many people don't want to commit, either out of fear or because they don't feel the need to. It only gets harder the older you get. We are then told, that online dating is probably the only way. Although a lot of people have met their partner online and are in happy relationships now, for many like me online dating is a nightmare, as it more like applying for a job than actually falling in love. Anything spontaneous is missing and while some people might be a great match on paper, based on pseudo-scientific tests, it turns out in real life you can't stand them. There is nothing wrong with trying online dating as long as you don't focus too much on it. Nobody should stay in a relationship just because an algorithm told them a certain person is the love of their life, just like you shouldn't break up with someone because an algorithm tells you that you are not a good match. 

A more general example are smart phones and all the kind of apps, which can be helpful tools or become obsessions. I myself use apps for several things from finding recipes, to tracking my blood pressure and including a daily workout in my life. But there also all sorts of crappy games and gadgets. Just think about the obsession some people developed with Candy Crush, actually missing appointments because they were stuck on a level and couldn't stop until they finished it. It has gone even so far that people have started to develop illnesses like neck pain, eye problems and sore thumbs just to name a few. We choose to consume something in excess that causes damage to our health, which in essence is the definition of an addiction. 

A few years back checking into places with your Facebook app was the latest thing and thousands of people kept sharing their location. It started to backfire, when criminals took advantage of it by using the address information on Facebook in combination with the location information to break into places, they knew were empty at that moment. 

While these are all issues that are worrying more extreme cases are possible. A few years back I wrote another blogpost about technology alluding to the movie "Surrogates", in which people used androids into which they transferred their consciousness. This way they didn't even have to leave their house. We all have realized during the pandemic who devastating something like this can be. 

The movie "Womb" is actually something of a link between the science fiction component and reality. The plot is simple: A woman gives birth to a clone of her deceased lover and raises him as her son, without telling him the truth. As he grows up the sexual tension between the two of them builds creating all sort of disturbing emotions. In this case the technology already exists and if it weren't for the laws in most countries humans could be cloned. Wouldn't it be tempting for grieving people to clone the lost loved ones? 

There are many examples that could be quoted where science fiction movies and books forecasted the use of technology which was yet to be invented. While some of these predictions were positive and have partly become true, just think of Jules Verne's submarine and Star Trek's communicators (which are eerily similar to our smart phones), there are countless examples of technology that start off positive but quickly take a turn for the worse. It is therefore essential to carefully consider when the use of technology ends and when the abuse of technology begins.