Rhetoric 3371 Spring 2007

In response to the article “Technology and Happiness,” it left me thinking of how happy I am now compared to how happy I was 10 years ago. I don’t necessarily feel any happier, along with the people in the studies of this article. The author claims that psychologist call this phenomenon hedonic adaptation. It seems silly to name a phenomenon, but it also seems silly that we are not any more happy now then we were years ago without the conveniences and efficiency we have now. I think it is terrible that we, me included, take so much for granted and it is also awful how upset we get when the technologies don’t work. My excuse for not being any happier is that new technologies eventually are mastered by their users until they have been used so much they become old news. This old news is taken for granted, sure, but it cannot be marveled about for the rest of our lives. I also wanted to note, even though the author claims we are not any happier…it does not mean we are not any more sad. Looking at it this way, one could say that we have been a constant happy society for decades.

I love the analogy at the end of the story that technology may only make meals a little more tasty but that it makes them bigger. Isn't that the bottom line. Surowiecki spends all this time describing how technolgy is not making society more happy and not until the very end does he give support to the benefit of technology. And low and behold he says that life is lengthened by 50 yrs because of technology and this makes the pursuit of technolgy worth it. I think he is right. Imagine if in the next 50 years we figure out how to increase life span by 20 yrs wouldn't that be worth developing that technology? I mean think of how many more opportunities you have for happiness. People in general find opportunity a source of happiness, and even if that oppportunity ends in failure you always have the next chance to succeed and that is why the extension of life equates to happiness.

Technology is a love hate relationship with humankind. It is sad but technology is what makes us either happy or sad on days. Technology is starting to rule our lives in so many ways. In the article it seemed just mostly as a bashing time on technology and how we aren't any happier today than people were 40 years ago, he never gave any evidence until the very end of how technology has changed so who knew exactly what he was talking about.

Last week, I felt much happier than the previous week when I bought my new computer. This week, I feel unhappier after realizing that my “new computer” is already being replaced by a new version. So where does that leave me: 1 happy week + 1 sad week = exactly where I first started. So yes, I do think technology has its happy and sad times but I also agree with Surowiecki in that overall, technology is only making us more sad and depressed. We think it’s making us happier but in reality, it’s putting us in a state of craziness where we always want the BEST of everything and we’re practically putting ourselves in the whole to get the best. Just once in my life, I would like to purchase something, anything, and be able to tell myself, yes! This is it! The last and final version! I have it and it will never be outdated so I don’t have to worry about the value dropping on it. Will a day like this ever come when certain technology can’t expand any further? Probably not in our generation but then again, according to Klosterman, “Everything necessary already exists.”

I think technology has the capability to make people very happy and also make them very depressed. It said in the article that studies have shown that the Amish are consistently happy all the time. The Amish live a life that does not include technology and I think they are happy all of the time because they don't have to deal with the complications, frusterations and constant updates of technology today.

The article posed a question: Is it possible that technology, instead of liberating us, is holding us back? I think it is very possible. While I think technology has advanced many things for us and made things convenient, I think those advancements have also made life more complicated and stressfull. I think, at times, technology does hold us back especially from just overall happiness.

Technology has provided many opportunities and possibilites for us today. I think technologies such as cell phone, PDAs, and computers have made life very convenient for us and I think we take advantage of what we have. The article suggested that broadband users should use dial up every once in awhile to really appreciate what a difference high speed makes. I think if everyone only used their cell phones every other day or did use dial up service every once in awhile, we would all appreciate what we have more than we do and we would also probably be happier with the technologies that we have.

While reading the Surowiecki article, I had many thoughts come into my head. I found myself agreeing with many aspects of the article. One line that stuck out in the article was, “even though people may not be happier, even though they are wealthier and possess more technology, they’re still as hungry as ever for more time.” That line kind of hit home for me because I’ve got a laptop, an iPod, cell phone, etc. However, I can really relate to the fact that no matter what technology we have, we can never have enough time. I think it is a constant in society that people always want more time to relax, work, etc. As a side note, I am very happy in my life – some of that happiness (I believe) is do to some of my technology. The question I have is will there ever be some sort of technology that allows us to have a “Staples” “Easy Button” that gets us whatever we want? I doubt it will ever be possible, but maybe.

I think it is very difficult to answer or even analyze the question, “does improved technology make people’s lives better?” I am sure it is variable depending on who you ask. Technology, such as the cell phone, the car, and air travel are, as the article sites, very stressful, but also very helpful. I am sure people would rather be with them than without them, “and this what makes thinking about happiness so hard—its not clear they are really making us happier.” There are two sides to every coin. Technology can definitely make life more stressful and also much easier. I don’t know how technology plays into happiness, but I don’t think it has that much impact on someone’s life, especially not enough to determine their well-being. Having strong relationships and attaining goals that a person sets out is generally, what I think, would make someone happy.

I agree that more technology does not equal more happiness. I think if I were to be dropped into a household a century ago, it would take much more effort to have an entertaining experience than it is today. Today if I'm bored, I often find myself too lazy to arrange a get together and instead watch a downloaded movie on my computer. So although being entertained may be easier these days, often times it is not as enjoyable as gathering a group of people together and drinking in a barn or whatever people did before the electronics revolution. The technologies I have now do not necessarily make me happier, but as James Surowiecki points out, could I now live without them? Sadly, I think the answer is no.

I have to say I agree with what Surowiecki is saying about happiness and technology in his essay. I think that the key to why technological progress does not necessarily make people happier is that it is hard to get satisfaction out of something that is constantly changing. When I think about the things that give me the most satisfaction or happiness I think about spending time with my family and friends, getting a good grade on a test, having fun on a Friday or Saturday night after a long week, and going to church on Sunday. I find things such as cameras, computers, cell phones and cars hard to get satisfaction from or at least on the long term because I am happy for a little while until they come out with a new camera or cell phone which makes mine feel inadequate. What if other things in your life changed every six months or so? Like your friends, boyfriend/girlfriend? The other article was very interesting. I liked the author’s point on how it took more time in the history of mankind to invent the wheel, but only a fraction of that time to have all the things we have today. The speed of progress is moving at an ever increasing rate, but is it possible to just step off the “treadmill of progress”? Surowiecki made a point that the Amish basically have and they have tested as high on the happiness scores as the richest Americans. So does technology make us happy? I would say yes, it does. But it will not give satisfaction and we need to be careful to understand this difference.

I didn't like the article, I didn't even like the writers style. So I wikied him. I was surprised to learn that he has obtained a position as staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. As I read on, it was clear that he had an impressive resume, having worked for several big time companies. Companies including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and even Fortune, which I believe he referenced in his article. Not too surprising seeing as he did study at Yale (Where he apparently made some good contacts. I don’t like him or his style, big deal right?
Back to his article. This article was published two years ago, Jan. 2005 in Technology Review, a MIT publication. Surprising, because I would think that such an institution would hire better editors that would serve this type of writing directly to their recycling bins. This article reminded me of something one might view on commercial broadcast television.
Let’s start with the title. “…increase our well-being.” But then the article continues to focus on technology and happiness. Much different than gadgets and well-being.
I don’t think he has much of an explanation here.

Getting accustomed to having something. If we are talking about ipods, I remember when I first purchased it and the excitement I felt. It slowly diminished as the weeks and months went on until became used to always having it. Now if I misplace it or forget it somewhere, it is tragic. While a couple years ago it didn’t bother me to not have one at all. In a sense, buying the ipod has not made me any happier in the long run.

I think one reason that the Amish may be consistently happy because they don’t rely on instant gratification as much as the rest of the world does. Also, their world does not change very much if at all as far as technology goes. It only makes sense that their happiness level would remain constant if their surroundings remain constant.

When I buy things, I ask myself if I will need it and how often I will use it. I do not ask myself if it will bring me joy or happiness. This article made me think about what makes me happy. When I buy or get new things, I get excited and happy about it. But after a while the excitement is gone. But it does not mean that I will throw it out the window because the excitement is gone, I am still happy that I have the item and I am happy because I get to use it or share it. Overall, I would say that I am happy with my life right now.
I found it easy to understand that the Amish are happy people. They have a tight community, very strong bonds with their family members, and have a strong faith in their religion. I think that most Americans do not have these and if they did, their self esteem would be higher and they would be more happier. I do believe it has to do with religion and culture and bonding with others than it has to do with technology. For instance, if there were two families, one family that is the Amish, and the second family that is like the Amish, tight community, very strong family bonds, and strong faith in their religion but this family has all the high-tech gadgets there is in the world. Both of the family would be as happy as they can be. The first family would have family nights with game boards whereas the second family would have family night with video games. But if we take the tight community, strong family bonds, and the faith in the religion away, we would have unhappy people. I do believe that most lonely people are the unhappiest people on earth.

In the article, it talks about how technology advances so quickly that your new version of a laptop becomes the old version and that upsets you but aren’t you still happy that you own a laptop rather than not have one?
I say it is better to have something rather than not have nothing because it just makes your life a little bit better, even if it is just a little bit.

I agree with james Surowiecki, that we are becoming more and more unhappy with our lives due to the complexity of technologies. However, i feel that these advancements are developed because someone thought of a way to make our lives easier and more comfortable. For Example, I use the webcam once a week to video chat with my family back home and that was only possible with new technology. Although i was excited initially with all the cool features after about a week i was not as excited, but was still glad that this technology existed that made it possible for me to see my relatives thousands of miles away. Something about the human nature i think makes them always strive towards bigger and better things. We are human being's and what we are innately supposed to be and do is to move forward and achieve a worthwhile goal. it's the progressive realization that keeps us going. i also think that there will never be a point in time when we will be completely happy with what we have because we always want what we can't have.

Am I the only one here that is constantly marveled by technology? I'm just like everyone else in the sense that I rarely appreciate things for very long but constantly I'm blown away by the technological advancements being done every few days. Keeping in mind that I'm kind of a techy-nerd... but still, the technological possibilities that lay ahead make me strangely joyous everyday. Calling me super geeky, that's fine, but everyday I hear of a smaller iPod with more space, those self flushing toilets in public restrooms, or a new mini-feed feature on the facebook (or whatever) I think "Hell yea!" I guess I could attribute this to my generally high optimism but rather than be disappointed because of what I don't have, I love seeing whats possible, what's available and what I will eventually own (once prices drop, of course).

Alex Daniels
3371
Technology and Happiness

When reading Technology and Happiness I made a direct correlation with my life because I think Technology makes us as Americans very depressed. I say this because I no from experience that technology causes depression, when my phone is lost or turned off because the battery died I feel that my world is up side down. It is because of the lack of conversation that I can have with the rest of the at that time world. If you look at the big picture the world is based on technology. Why? I think it’s because we as Americans have got lazy and the companies that keep creating new monsters as Frankenstein did and not knowing the effects that it will have on the world as a whole. I think this why we have more obesity in the USA the any place in the world, not saying that the other country don’t have some of the same problems but were number one.

Can I trust what makes me happy with Technology? No I can not trust what makes me happy in a cense that my generation is the technology boom and haven’t leaved in my mother or grandmothers generation when you had to go out side to have fun, or call on the house phone for one of your friend, not cell phone or play station 3. I don’t know if I would be happy with the natural world with out technology but the world would be a lot safer to raise children and have a safe life. Look at the Amish I from Ohio where theirs is some Amish people staying in little town out side of Cleveland that are very happy and healthy in there every day life. The only thing that I think is some what crazy is their way of transportation but it’s efficient. You as a teacher tell me in call HOW YOU FILL!

I don't really think about happiness and technology together so much. I may prefer having (most) technologies over not having them, but its not like having them or not having them would determine my happiness. If I have to go without some of it, such as when my computer needs repairs, I don't turn out to be unhappy. I might miss some of the activities that were available when I did have it, but that's not quite the same thing. There might however be some correlation involved, but suggesting causation is too much.

I'm not so sure that people aren't happier now than they used to be. It would seem to me that with advances in medicine, especially in relation to treating emotional and psychological disorders, a larger percentage of people are able to function normally in spite of chemical imbalances. Chronic sadness is now recognized as abnormal, and is treatable with therapy and pharmeceuticals.


Personally, I like when new gadgets are introduced and I get to spend time figuring out how to use them. I know that not everyone functions this way, but the Internets (a series of tubes), the latest video games, and new computer components and software provide me with an opportunity for exploration and discovery. Sure, it's gonna be stressful getting Windows Vista up and running. But, like most other technologies, it's not neccesary to be on the bleeding edge. Wait until others (like me) have all the kinks worked out, and adapt to the more established and stable technology in 6 months-1 year.


I would like to comment briefly on something Nathan Morris said. I definitely don't equivocate long life with increased happiness, or with making a technology worth pursuing. There's a whole slew of problems related to the ever increasing life expectancy in this country, most of the economic. For instance, if people were still only living to be 55 or 60, instead of 75 or 80, do you think we'd be having this debate about Social Security? Or all of these elderly people who can't afford to buy their meds and pay their rent and eat all in the same month?

I was thinking about how much happier the amish are than us, and I wonder if it's not so much because they don't have technology, but because they foster values that make people happy. I think that average people could be as happy as the amish, even with all our technology, if we straightened out our morals and values. The article says that people with more strong social ties are happier than those without, well, we can have strong family/friend/religous/spiritual/etc
bonds and still have technology. I think it might not be technology so much as the modern world system that makes people less happy.

I agree with Alex Daniels when he stated that technologies may cause depression. I find that the overall stress in using a new technology is far greater than the positive results. This holds true with the Amish. Since they have never been exposed to the new technologies, they do not know what they are missing and are generally happier.

“Is technological progress merely a treadmill, and if so, would we be happier if we stepped off of it?” James Surowiecki suggests that if individuals who are highly dependent on technology deceased the frequency of usage, then they would be generally happier. I do not think society would be happier if we decreased our use of technology. I find that since we already have been exposed to technologies, we have expectations from them. For example, one would be pretty upset if their cell phone all of a sudden quit working.

I was surprised to read in the "Technology and Happiness" article that the level of happiness among the people in the US has decreased slighly from the 1970s. I think that the reason for the decrease in happiness is because our price for standard living has increased. Most people are working longer hours than anywhere else in the world. I think that the long hours along with the stress of trying to compete with other companies and countries takes toll on a lot of people. I think that this is most evident in the corporate world where competition is key in almost every facet. I think that because of the stress of competition and the long work hours people's moral is decreasing. The up-side for being such a competitive and rich country is that we have a lot of choices in the leisure activities and entertainment when we do have a chance to breathe and relax. Overall though, I don't think that it balances out the stress of our everyday lives and I certainly don't think that money buys happiness. If anything, money can easily take happiness away from people because when people make more money, they get more work and responsibilities and deadlines that need to be met.

The article also brought up a good question as to whether or not technology is actually holding us back. I think that in a way it is because the more we have of it, it seems the more we strive to improve it and have more of it. Versus, if we were to have the bare minimum technology, we may be more content because we would have all that we would need. I also think that it would impossible to take a step back from technology because so much of our world revolves around it. Our suburb and rural areas are dependent on car travel because it would be very hard to get around without transportation. Only the people that are living in the urban areas would probably be able to get around town without many problems. As a whole though, I think that we've become too dependent on the comforts of technology and it would be ludacris to "take a step back" even though our level of happiness may be decreasing.

I really thought the Technology and Happiness reading was interesting. As I read through, I thought of all of the gadgets I have and how I am so dependent on them. But often they are sources of anxiety for me. Recently, my computer broke down and I spent two days scrambling around to try to fix it. The intricate ins and outs of technology can be very confusing and they are constantly changing.

Surowiecki cited Tom Wolfe who deemed that Americans were in the middle of a ‘happiness explosion’ in the 1960’s. With all of the problems our country faced in the ‘60’s, I wonder how he believed this was so. I think that the biggest fault with technology in regards to human happiness is that it is always changing. The cell phones are getting smaller, computers are faster, cars can park themselves and people have a strong desire to keep upgrading what they have. The ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ mentality could be very detrimental to a person’s overall sense of well being.

When reading "Technology and Happiness" I thought it was interesting, however I don't really think technology has much to do with how happy people are. A person's own take on life, their job, their friends and social life etc. is really what determines 'happiness.' Would I be as happy as I am now if I never had all the technologies I do now? Probably. If I never knew of them I wouldn't miss them.

This rise in household technologies leads to materialism and this is where people come to be unhappy. It is not because of the technology itself, but because of the materialistic values people create.

I agree with the idea in Surowiecki's article that in today's world, luxuries have become necessaties. It was only a few years ago, that people were fascinated by the cool tecnologies other people used around them, but that's not the case any more. Laptops, palmtops, i-pod's, digital cameras-even the slimest ones and calling over seas for just a few cents is very common for today. But the truth is people are less content when they know that others have more. There are vast varities to choose from and people can get stuck with technologies that don't make them happy, but at the same time they are so used to it that its hard to get rid of them.

Wealth is something good to have, as it give is a variety of options to choose from; but then more choices make people frustrated. New and better technologies are sources of frustration and stress. With the advancement of technologies, we see that the need of personal health counsellors, mental supporters had incresed greatly. This is all due to the increse in anxiety, debts, money stress which is caused directly or indirectly due to the usage of technologies. We see that with the advancement of new and latest technologies, video cameras, phone recordings are used almost everywhere, which has preserved little or no privacy today. This leads to an issue which conveys that 'trust' is more and more vanishing from the society. Relations are getting harder to sustain. People are so busy using the latest gadgest available, that they have lesser time for friends and family, which in turn affects their personal happines. This reminds me of the very popular e-mail which said - you know you live in the 21st century when: the first thing we do in the morning is checking e-mails rather than having morning tea/coffee; we have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach our family of four..etc., and it is so true! So the bottom line is, technologies do not make us any happier, but this comes with a fact, we CANNOT be without them either. It is a high time to think, it this holding us back?