Techfatuation

Technology is amazing. It allows me to type out this message right now. And for you to read it.

Uber Eats delivers food from restaurants — right to our door. I can put my infant in a swing powered by batteries that lull her to sleep (…and I can then clean up the kitchen). I can read articles the New York Times just published a few minutes ago — in my home in California. None of this was popular decades ago. It is now.

However, the amazement of technology seems to be creating an unintended consequence. I’m not even sure many of us are realizing it.

Listen to many Bay Area VCs and other talking heads, and you’ll notice there are certain areas of the country absolutely 100% infatuated with technology: it solves all of our problems.

I still love technology. I think it’s great. But when we start looking to it as our god — the thing we worship and laud — as if it will save us from sickness, poverty, boredom, or death, let’s keep in mind that it has certainly contributed to our health and success (at least, for some of us), but it is certainly not the conclusion to our miseries.

We will keep inventing. Creating will continue. Innovation will rise. But let us not think ourselves so highly that imperfect beings can create perfect software to fix our problems. We’re glued to technology. Perhaps we should coin the term techfatuation.