History as a Guide to the Information Age
- Oliver Harflett
- 7 hours ago
- 6 min read
This essay was written in answer to the question ‘is digital technology necessary for a flourishing future?’ It was written in 2020 and lightly amended in 2025. I hope you enjoy it.
There are a whole host of societal benefits of having access to digital technology. For example, digital technology is a major component of modern economies. The UK government believes it is so important that there is a government department dedicated to building and maintain a digital economy; the Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (UK Government, 2017.) The government has an annual budget of over £1.4 billion for this department (as of 2019.)
The digital economy is already worth approx. $3 trillion and is growing (Delices, 2010.) There is so much activity and opportunity available in this economic sector that it is worth more than entire UK’s economy (Gross Domestic Product measurement.) One could deduce that without access to digital technology, a gigantic opportunity for development and employment in the future would be non-existent for millions of people.
To touch on current affairs, digital technology has helped improve the response to the COVID-19 outbreak (McCloskey and Heymann, 2020.) McCloskey and Heymann also state that the WHO (World Health Organisation) advocated using social media to help spread information more quickly to citizens about viral outbreaks after the SARS outbreak in 2002 during the early days of the internet. According to their research, social media also improves the coordination between different governments across the globe, thus improving the speed and effectiveness of containing COVID-19 (or other potential outbreaks in the future.)
There are also personal benefits from access to digital technology. A recent study showed how digital technology can enhance the effectiveness of CBT for older patients as well as increasing the quality of life of dementia patients (Cangelosi, Pamela, Sorrell, Jeanne, 2014.) One very simple way that technology managed to improve older people’s mental health was by enabling to keep in contact with friends and family more easily. This does not touch upon the multitude of ways digital technology assists dementia patients with voice recording software, automatic pill dispensers or telecare. Another benefit to mental health through digital technology is that the providing of mental health care to young people becomes much more personalised, much quicker and potentially more effective (Lal, Daniel and Rivard, 2017.)
While there something to be said for the dangers of information overload, it is not an argument against digital technology in its entirety. It is an observation on how the brain tries to filter information. For someone who is aware of this psychological effect, it is no longer such a big issue for them – sometimes knowledge truly is power. (I’d tweak Alexander’s famous quote to ‘the right type of knowledge is power.’)
It also depends on the information a person is trying to seek. Digital information includes anything on the internet – it can used to learn how to make a meal or it can be used to learn how to build a bomb. Digital information is just a tool that a person uses – and the positive uses are innumerable. One recent example relevant to psychology is something called Positive Technology. To summarise it briefly, positive technology simply aims to improve wellbeing in a scientific manner through technology. Three ways technology can achieve this is through hedonic (pleasurable) eudemonic (fulfilling) and social means (Brivio et al., 2018.) It is worth mentioning that Positive Technology emerged from the well-known Positive Psychology movement (Seligman, 2004), a movement that has its share of detractors.
To acknowledge that the sheer quantity of information available online can cloud judgement and discernment does not mean it is antithetical to a flourishing future. Knowledge is what civilisation is built upon. Without access to the largest repository of information in human history, how are we supposed to develop new treatments for cancer, a vaccine for COVID-19 or better GM foods for the world’s poorest people?
To offer just one example of this, researchers have shown that access to the internet helps the poorest people in the most resource deprived countries on Earth to protect biodiversity (Veerle, Oatham and Johnson, 2008.) Think about it - a lowly farmer in Trinidad and Tobago can have access to 4.66 billion webpages (Bosch, Bogers & Kunder, 2015.) This estimate doesn’t even include the deep web, which was estimated to be 400 – 500 times larger than the surface web 20 years ago (Taking License, 2001.) This means that the amount of information anybody can obtain with digital technology is absolutely astounding. The way this information is used is up to the user, not the machines. Digital information can used for good or used for ill. It can be used to enlighten one person, yet engulf another (social media is an infamous example of this.)
It is like a hammer - a hammer can be used to build a beautiful house, or used to torture somebody. The tool itself is not the determinant of its worth; its worth is determined by the one who uses it. The internet and increasingly artificial intelligence (AI) might be the most powerful tools we’ve ever created. A set of tools far beyond the realm of the humble hammer. To turn a blind eye to this wave of change would be monstrously foolish. And whilst the technology is new, the questions it raises are old. One strange man from the midst of the Industrial Revolution had a brilliant insight into the struggle between humanity and technology… the twice former prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. He said:
“Change is constant; and the great question is not whether you still resist change which is inevitable, but whether that change shall be carried out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws and the traditions of a people, or…in deference to abstract principles and arbitrary and general doctrines.” (Disraeli, 1867.)
Whilst Disraeli was referring to the ‘abstract principles’ of uncompromising political liberalism, he was smart enough to know that dangerous ‘generalist’ doctrines applied in the technical realm, not merely the social or political realm. After all, he lived and ruled through the Industrial Age - an extraordinary confluence of social, religious and technological change. He would have seen, heard and smelt the roaring symphony of mechanical machines tearing up the world he grew up in. And his insight into change might offer one spotlight on how to navigate this ‘Information Age’ of our time…
It is not about if we change; it is about how we change. The real challenge is not whether we use this technology, but having the wisdom to know when to use this technology. In keeping it as a tool; in keeping it within its toolbox; in keeping it as a means and not an end. The question is will we have the strength to do so? As Lao Tzu (2019) put it over two millennia before:
"Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.”
References
About us. (n.d.). Retrieved April 8th 2020 from HM Government’s website: gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-digital-culture-media-sport/about
Bosch A.V.D., Bogers T. and Kunder M.D. Estimating search engine index size variability: a 9-year longitudinal study. (July 27 2015). Scientometrics 106(2) DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-1863-z
Brivio E., Gaudioso F., Vergine I., Mirizzi C.R., Reina C., Stellari A. and Galimberti C. (December 17 2018). Preventing Technostress Through Positive Technology. Front Psychol https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02569
Cangelosi, Pamela R., Sorrell, Jeanne M. (2014) Use of technology to enhance mental health for older adults. Journal of psychosocial nursing and mental health services, 52(9), 17-20
DOI:10.3928/02793695-20140721-01)
Delices, P. (2010) The Digital Economy. Journal of International Affairs. 64(1): 225–226
Disraeli, B. (1867) ‘Speech at Edinburgh', Edinburgh, October 29.
Lal, S., Daniel, W., and Rivard, L. (2017) Perspectives of Family Members on Using Technology in Youth Mental Health Care: A Qualitative Study. JMIR Ment Health 4(2)
DOI: 10.2196/mental.7296
Laozi (2019) Tao Te Ching. Translated by James Legge. London: Penguin Classics.
McCloskey B., Heymann D.L. (2020). SARS to novel coronavirus – old lessons and new lessons. Epidemiology and Infection 148(22) 1–4
Seligman M.E.P. (2004). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York, USA. Simon and Schuster
Veerle V.D.E., Oatham, M.P. and Johnson W. (July 2008) How free access internet resources benefit biodiversity and conservation research: Trinidad and Tobago's endemic plants and their conservation status. Oryx 42(3), 400-407. DOI: 10.1017/S0030605308007321
White Paper: The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value. (August 2001). Taking License 7(1) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0007.104
