Die Technologie verändert uns wahrscheinlich zum Schlechteren – so denken wir zumindest immer

>Do we use technology, or does it use us? Do our gadgets improve our lives or just make us weak, lazy, and dumb? These are old questions—maybe older than you think. You’re probably familiar with the way alarmed grown-ups through the decades have assailed the mind-rotting potential of [search engines](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/), [video games](https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2000/04/video-games), [television](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tv-hurts-kids-of-all-ages-studies-say/), and [radio](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/american-children-faced-great-dangers-1930s-none-greater-little-orphan-annie-180957544/#:~:text=In%20March%201933%2C%20Time%20reported,bad%20emotional%20effect%20and%20unnatural)—but those are just the recent examples.

>Early in the last century, pundits argued that the [telephone severed the need for personal contact](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/why-technophobes-have-been-getting-it-wrong-since-gutenberg/) and would lead to social isolation. In the 19th century some warned that [the bicycle would rob women of their femininity](https://www.atlantisjournal.org/index.php/atlantis/article/view/598) and result in a [haggard look known as “bicycle face.”](https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history-did-you-know/moral-and-medical-panic-over-bicycles) Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel [*Frankenstein*](https://www.amazon.com/Frankenstein-Original-Unabridged-Version-Shelley/dp/1947215140/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=8JE8811GJ4OR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._wGyhBm5zTHC9Gf5Ap4kzRvMYURmb5bDXfuIg7a92wOTrnnsbPoSB8ainNnIGU8xGzqjV4giJURQfpPPzvyfeiu2mekjE4nSslSrR-uN7wmmguRvBpLzEA16XY4uPVHSaISjT7ZW2L5LA7aizz9mpvx3qKiuUAbB6RO2Z0nO_at8VizK14V54bsZ1Ikuzbwj2oEq-3pqfjH5bPPVkQOSRmG1E2lDtfJCWawwO-pAY3o.xzXRSNaot2AJi4qreAvCnW6SGWhOnyro4dwteEqMkLw&dib_tag=se&keywords=Frankenstein&qid=1710774783&sprefix=frankenstein%2Caps%2C108&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1) was a warning against using technology to play God, and how it might blur the lines between what’s human and what isn’t.

>Or to go back even further: in [Plato’s *Phaedrus*](https://www.amazon.com/Phaedrus-Oxford-Worlds-Classics-Plato/dp/0199554021/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2W8NHH9CZD3R4&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.K-Bi2-UPjUzLkFm3dwz6kKOHeb2oapX7D5uMsTzn4rye0oZ7xjHcaI2C9giygFkGeGfotJ4T02Ikq3Jbn9q6xY97IfOL9FKrGoZEJ5W2_cr95OjCqI2tY8qFgmeGtm5lReUHWxVYmBZHbcHB5DfdoYJ7GE4Or3hahmSwh414L53lPKx8oDdIKkASYjf9QFEIg9SOybyvyqTee-sOTG2CNs3R0ql2JTg1xbggiHaYE-A.m-UrAYcEaAKApqLlDltKFkJ3S6z2PA87Tjlnx0atPVc&dib_tag=se&keywords=phaedrus&qid=1709575308&sprefix=phaedrus%2Caps%2C102&sr=8-5), from around 370 BCE, Socrates suggests that writing could be a detriment to human memory—the argument being, if you’ve written it down, you no longer needed to remember it.

>We’ve always greeted new technologies with a mixture of fascination and fear,  says [Margaret O’Mara](https://www.technologyreview.com/author/margaret-omara/), a historian at the University of Washington who focuses on the intersection of technology and American politics. “People think: ‘Wow, this is going to change everything affirmatively, positively,’” she says. “And at the same time: ‘It’s scary—this is going to corrupt us or change us in some negative way.’”

>And then something interesting happens: “We get used to it,” she says. “The novelty wears off and the new thing becomes a habit.”