Rather than thinking of technology as a panacea or the sure cause of the demise of humanity this page is devoted to suggesting some criteria for measuring the immediate effects of technological phenomena on people. The illumination of these immediate effects can be useful for a variety of reasons:
To clarify these reasons let's examine them in further detail. It should be mentioned that the purpose of this writing would suspect to those who lean toward determinism or existentialism. We continue under the assumption that people can learn to select specific behaviors from among various options based on experience. In short we assume here that people can learn. We also understand that we are constructing techniques to examine the technical, that logic itself is technique, but we leave these philosophic issues to those better equipped to grapple with them.
The notion of measuring the effects of specific devices or chemicals on humans is a well developed science, however there is much that can be contributed to allow comparative examinations of the effects of related devices. These comparison studies could sway individuals toward one competing device and away from another that serves a similar function. For instance voice mail may be a better choice than email for a person that wishes to break the habit of always editing their own expressions before anyone witnesses their mistakes and inaccuracies. Another person may wish to draw up a short list of goals instead of a list of things to do because the later tends to evolve into a list of irrelevant items that just foster feelings of inadequacy. Some may wish to erase their chat software because it creates too much of a temptation to assume the identity of another more desirable person. It is possible that the choice to match the number of hours reading with the same number of hours writing to avoid being to defined by the view of others.
Drugs and certain sexual activities have been legislated because of the destructive effects that they have on those who seek them to escape anxiety, boredom or pain. The legislative actions would not have been necessary unless the legislators, and perhaps their constituents, did not believe that the individuals ability to see clearly the effects of the activity was somehow impaired. This impairment is often referred to as addiction. There is much evidence available to at least pose the hypothesis that some people are addicted to a certain television program, phone sex or driving cars erratically. There are few who would argue the detrimental effects of the driving unsafely and the need to regulate driving safety, but not many have considered the practice of sending children to watch television as a remedy for parental anxiety as more detrimental to the child's growth than smoking marijuana with them. Is that an alarmist remark? How can that be investigated?
The interface between a technical device and a single person that interacts with it may have several dimensions in which they can be classified:
There are several real concerns that a person may have about their use of technical devices: