The age of technology—the digital age— is an age where what we seek is seeking us, and what is seeking us is seeking so strongly that it winds up evolving into common-sensical patterns with which objects are represented, meanings are mediated, and our very identity is constructed; thereby molding our cognition and subsequently influencing our behavior. Pondering on the most salient factor (or gift) without which humanity could never have reached the level of scientific and technological development it has reached nowadays forwards human beings’ ability to learn. As trivial as seems as first glance, imagining two young twins, one raised in an isolated forest by some primitive culture and the other taught from early ages by the best of educators, scientists, language teachers, spiritual masters, and skilled craftsmen is sufficient to comprehend how despite being equipped with the same innate cognitive abilities, the correct harness of the ability to learn can make all the difference. The first twin would likely conceive the other as smarter, more knowledgeable, and more civilized; and the second would also consider the first as inferior, intellectually less developed, or even biologically less evolved.

The foregoing example is highlighted as an epitome illustrating the importance of education –the right one. Pondering on an age in which individuals only need to have the desire and will of learning whatever they want in order to find hundreds of teachers, thousand of books, and countless materials with a few clicks might lead us to conclude that most of them would be so busy achieving their full potential and grow intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and ethically as human beings. We are living in that age. As more people are gaining access to the internet, information and communication technologies (ICT) and other technologies, the massive amount of information that can be learned is still increasing day after another; and nevertheless, such technologies have also “undermined our humanity in some respects (Ananou & Yamamoto, 2015). In ‘Humanity in the Digital Age: Cognitive, Social, Emotional, and Ethical Implications’, Ananou and Yamamoto (2015) discuss some of these ‘respects’ in which humanity is undermined due to technology use, framing human nature in terms of four dimensions: the first three, the cognitive, social and emotional are addressed by Deragon (2011), and the remaining fourth, the ethical, forwarded by the authors. Their argument is that while basic human nature remains constant, these four dimensions are molded are molded by interaction with the environment through the use of technology (Ananou & Yamamoto, 2015).

While Ananou and Yamamoto (2015) point to some negative cognitive effects of heavy reliance on technology, namely the lack of direct verbal interactions, the insufficient practice and therefore failure in non-verbal communication necessary for face-to-face interactions, and multitasking, a large body of literature within Media Studies, Cultural Studies, critical linguistics, Critical Discourse Studies, psychology, political communication, cognitive linguistic, and even spiritual scriptures also investigate the extent to which our cognition is often ideologically influenced by ICT, new media (e.g., social media, the internet, etc.), and other technologies.

Scholars and researcher bring together different perspectives and theoretical frameworks from the aforementioned disciplines to help sensitize us to important dimensions of technology, and each accounting for the deficiencies and blind-spots exhibited by others which limit our field of vision and capacity to engage with the multidimensional complexities involved.  Briefly, the quest is to reveal how exposure to technology or new media results in and the production of meaning through representation and the subsequent production of knowledge through semiotic resources. Such meanings and such knowledge is usually mediated by ideologically framing objects is such a way that leads individuals to follow a particular line of interpretation, assign already cultured meanings to themselves and their surroundings, accept certain ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions, internalize them as the obvious common-sensical ways of interpretation, and accordingly controlling how we act and react.

Aside from cognitive implications, social and emotional implications mentioned in the article include the tendency of an increased number of people to prefer computer-mediated-communication (CMM) using social media platform than face-to-face communication. The result is that people are “becoming disconnected in a face-to-face relationship due to too much time spent online (Ananou & Yamamoto, 2015), which in turn infringes our social functioning. Also, access and easiness of making unkind remarks, uploading embarrassing videos and pictures of others in online platform (Englander, Mills, & McCoy, 2009) drives many to deploy such platforms to do more harm than good. Furthermore, the availability of portraying one’s self as one pleases also paves way to catfishing and a blurred sense of reality. Ethical implications, on the other hand, are the result of the remarkable access to abundant content on the internet regardless of geographic and social limitations which makes it easier for students to engage in academically dishonest activities such as plagiarism (Ananou & Yamamoto, 2015).

The authors assert that when technology is not well orchestrated, it can distract the process of strengthening humanity and diminishing our inquisitive abilities. They argue that correct and wise harness of technology to improve our cognitive abilities, emotional awareness, social skills, and ethical values require a “framework” guided by empathy, self-knowledge, good decision-making, impulse control education, and academic honesty. Evidently, increasing one’s awareness regarding the multidimensional influence of technology use is in itself one step to emancipate from -at least the major- negative effects of technology, and instead exploiting it to grow as human beings.

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Ananou, S. & Yamamoto, J. (2015). Humanity in the digital age: Cognitive,social, emotional, and ethical implications. Contemporary EducationalTechnology, 2015, 6(1), 118. https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/6136

Deragon, J. (January, 2011). The influence of technology on humanity.Retrieved on 18 June 2014 from The Relationship Economy website:http://www.relationshipeconomy.com/2011/01/technologys-influence-over-humanity/

Englander, E., Mills, E. & McCoy, M. (2009) Cyberbullying andinformation exposure: Usergenerated content in post-se.

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