We are living in technopia
zom·bie ˈzäm-bē (noun)
1a : a will-less and speechless human (as in voodoo belief and in fictional stories) held to have died and been supernaturally reanimated
1b : the supernatural power that according to voodoo belief may enter into and reanimate a dead body
2a : a person held to resemble the so-called walking dead
especially: AUTOMATON
2b : a person markedly strange in appearance or behavior
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 2023
It’s 7 am. My iPhone alarm wakes me up. Its processing is powered by more than 10 billion transistors. The first thing I do after opening my eyes is reach for the phone to stop the all-too-familiar sound of a digital alarm. I didn’t sleep well, because I stared at my phone before going to bed, and the photons emitted from my device disrupted my body’s natural melatonin release. Once my phone is in my hands, I immediately feel a sense of relief. I check new messages and emails, sort through the spam that made it through the junk filters, and then scroll through various feeds. While I was sleeping, multiple apps sent thousands of data points to hundreds of companies for profit. This data extraction deliberately occurs at night, because it drains the battery, and knows that my phone will likely be plugged in to charge overnight. It knows my phone will be plugged in because it knows my sleeping schedule. That’s not a challenging calculation for an algorithm…if there’s a substantial gap of time where I’m not using my phone, the probability of me sleeping is very high, because I’m on my phone all the time.
I’ll never know exactly what data was shared with these companies.. They know everything about us but we know very little about what they know about us. It’s not like any of us actually read all those verbose yet vague consent agreements, let alone understand them. In technopia, data is power, and I have very little compared to internet platforms. I click on an ad while scrolling. It’s for shoes, a particular brand I’ve been thinking about getting. I feel like my phone is reading my mind. In many ways it is. When my personalized feed shows an advertisement, it’s customized just for me. This targeted approach has revolutionized marketing through extreme personalization. Every click and swipe is quantified. Even the things I start to type into google search but then stop are still captured. In technopia, there is a singular goal to extract as much data as possible from the user without their knowledge. The sum of those seemingly innocuous actions is processed through a complex algorithm that creates a digital voodoo doll of me. This digital reproduction is then used to predict my future behavior and sold to the highest bidder in real-time. Remarkably, all of this is perfectly legal.
I spend a few minutes checking my phone and “doom scrolling,” reading the various deliberately salacious headlines that are designed to elicit a fight or flight response so that I am more likely to click on it. The deliberate nature of these headlines has made news, in general, more extreme because articles that don’t create immediate engagement or take too long to read don’t get clicks. Advertisers have a fraction of a second to get users to stop scrolling. As attention spans drop, critical thinking has dropped with it, and users are more prone to primal urges. As I scroll, I realize I am being manipulated, but the reptilian part of my brain takes over, and I click anyway. Subconsciously, all this negativity generates a deep sense of anxiety and dread about the world we live in, but like a hamster in a wheel, I continue this routine day after day, because it’s addictive. If I look around, everyone else is doing the same thing, head at a downward 45-degree angle, leading to an interesting side effect of muscular-skeletal problems.
On my way to the gym, I order a coffee through the mobile app, becoming one of the countless people staring at their phone as they navigate the busy, dangerous streets of an urban environment where multi-ton vehicles charge from one street to another. The clever gamification of just about everything collects all my data about what I order in exchange for points resulting in an occasional free coffee. I take the bait and get excited when I get something for “free.” Once inside the coffee shop, I pick up my Americano in the mobile pick-up section without talking to a single human. I look at the line in front of the barista and wonder if the people waiting there realize they don’t have to do that. I ask myself how many more years before coffee franchises won’t have any baristas at all. Maybe 5? Millions of people will lose their jobs and livelihoods in the next decade due to automation, so I wouldn’t be surprised. Oh, well. I continue to walk while listening to a podcast summarizing in audio form the terrible things that happened in the world while I was sleeping. My brain is overwhelmed with information and it’s not even 9 a.m. With every minor pause in the flow of my morning, I check my phone reflexively, like a nervous twitch.
While walking on the street, I use my peripheral vision to reduce the chances someone will bump into me while staring at their phone, and I’m cautious of doing the same while staring at mine. The inevitable collision occurs and I look up in a brief, awkward moment of direct eye contact. We both move on uncomfortably. When I’m on my device, it’s hard not to feel like I’m the most important person in the world, because it actually is my own curated digital world. An infinite digital universe robotically crafted just for me, designed to keep me engaged for as long as possible. It’s not uncommon for distracted pedestrians to walk into traffic or for distracted drivers to hit distracted pedestrians. I’ve even read about zombie-like humans falling into city manholes. In technopia, everyone is distracted by something.
I check into the gym with my app. The receptionist at the front desk gives me a smile as her job is now mostly to help the technologically inept customers, mostly elderly, who are either unable or unwilling to check in through the app and require some human assistance. As I pass, she takes out her phone and continues to scroll on what I imagine to be, based on her age, TikTok. While working out, I monitor my heart rate with my watch, where I can also receive my messages and emails. The elliptical machine I use to warm up also connects to my phone and offers a variety of content to choose from including a screen that provides a first-person view of a virtual hike at beautiful parks around the world. Today, I’ll virtually hike Sardinia. Above the row of ellipticals are a dozen screens streaming various news and sports networks. It won’t be long before those, too, are customized for each gym member. My phone remains in my pocket in case I need a larger device to craft an email or message, but I can still feel the vibration on my wrist with each notification. Throughout my workout, valuable data about my health is being organized and processed by the first company in history to have a trillion-dollar valuation.
As I finish my workout, I order a post-workout smoothie through yet another mobile app, so it’s ready for me by the time I get there. I execute this routine with a high probability of certainty. If everything goes as planned, my day will be almost completely automated, leaving me with a feeling of maximum efficiency and productivity. I listen to the rest of a podcast while walking back. I listen to it at a speed of 1 ¼ so that I finish it faster. As I’m walking through the streets, I risk the chance of my phone being attacked by a StingRay, which is a device that signals like a fake cell phone tower so it can attach to your phone and steal data. They can be made from materials easily available on Amazon and electronic retail stores. I would never know if this happened until it was too late, and it happens all the time.
I get back to my room and shower. Then I call an Uber to take me to the airport. I time it so that it arrives within a minute of me waiting outside. The route updates in the driver’s GPS and we’re off. I continue to check my emails and messages, barely speaking a word to the driver, who knows I prefer to work while riding because they “prefers silence” it’s saved as a preference in my rider profile. I know there is much more information about me than that on my profile that the driver can access, but I’m not able to see all of it. I ask if he has a smartphone charger. To my relief, he does, because my power is in the red, and the thought of arriving at the airport with a dead phone is terrifying. As we are driving through a toll, electronic cameras snap images of his license plate that are automatically billed. In fact, most of our drive was surveilled in one form or another.
Upon arrival at the airport, I walk to an expedited line where my pupils are scanned as my ID, a scene straight out of Total Recall, and I breeze through security. I go to the lounge, and scanning my ticket in a machine, while a representative assists those who aren’t familiar with that technology. I am thanked for my loyalty before finding a cozy nook, where I sit and work wearing my AirPods, a signal to others that I am not available for conversation. Dozens of other passengers are doing the same thing, with the exception of a few brave souls chatting each other up at the bar. I’ve also managed to check my social media accounts and am slightly disappointed at the subpar performance of my last post. I tell myself I shouldn’t care, but I do.
My app notifies me when my zone is boarding. Planes all around me are taking off, monitored by flight algorithms that evaluate flight paths and weather patterns. It won’t be long before pilots on planes will simply be there to make passengers feel better before it’s commonly accepted to be flown remotely to save the airlines money. When it comes to aviation, computers make fewer mistakes than people do. I scan my phone to board my flight and the attendant waves me through with a smile. My membership status pops up, and I am thanked for my loyalty, again. I think briefly about how many miles I must fly before the highest status the airline offers. I am close but I’m not sure I will achieve this goal, which annoys me.
I find my seat and hope that I’m not sitting next to someone who wants to talk to me the entire time. I used to enjoy chatting people up while traveling, but I now find it challenging. Humans are unpredictable, and I don’t like risking the awkwardness of initiating a conversation I don’t want to pursue for several hours. I sit down and begin to choose what movie I’ll watch during the flight. There are lots of options, and I” ve also downloaded some films onto my Ipad as a backup plan. I use my fingers to scroll through the touch screen. There are so many options, I begin to get frustrated with not being able to find something I really want to watch. This overwhelming abundance of choice in the digital world is called decision fatigue, and it’s quite normal. In the course of a single day, my ancient brain will receive tens of thousands of digital stimuli to process. It’s exhausting.
The plane takes off and the first thing I do when we are in the air is connect my phone to the WiFi. Within a few minutes of takeoff, the film I finally settled on is interrupted by an announcement: somebody is having a medical issue on the plane and the attendants are asking if anybody on the flight is a medical professional. I slowly look around and notice hardly anyone even moves. The passengers are still staring at their screens. I have a brief moment of empathy and hope that the person is okay, then I return to watching my screen. Also on the screen in front of me is information about the duration of the flight. I can see exactly when we will land, so like a child on a road trip, I occasionally tap on the update to see if “we are there yet.” I never quite got into the film I selected. It’s harder and harder for me to enjoy a film these days, and I often end up fast-forwarding through the boring parts that were necessary for me to appreciate the ending.
My flight lands and as I deboard, my app notifies me when my luggage is arriving. I Uber home having barely spoken to another human throughout the course of the entire day. With everything automated, it’s like I have not traveled anywhere at all. When I get home, I pick up the Amazon boxes that are next to my door with excitement. I forgot I had ordered anything. The recommendations made it so easy that I impulsively made orders with a single swipe. I order some food and do some work. The delivery driver follows my instructions to drop off the food at my door so that I don’t have to talk to them. Another bullet dodged.
The day is almost over. It was automated, predictable, and filled with complacency and convenience. By all means, this should have been a good day, but something deep inside of me is unsettled and unhappy. I don’t feel human. This isn’t a dystopian future. It’s reality.
Welcome to Technopia.
