How Technology has and is shaping the human mind and body

Most writings on the topic of technology and the mind circle centre on the harm that digital technology and social media are bringing to people. However, in this chapter, we will be taking a more in-depth look at the topic to get a well-rounded picture and establish if the general assessment is true.

What is Technology?

To understand the relationship between technology and the human mind we must first understand these terms. Let us begin by asking, what is technology? Is it just mobile phones and computers, or is it something else?

Webster’s dictionary defines it as

“The practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area: ENGINEERING”

Encyclopaedia Britannica defines technology as

“The application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life or, as it is sometimes phrased, to the change and manipulation of the human environment.”

Technology is everything that we humans have invented to expand our understanding of the universe and make our lives easier. Everything from learning how to light a fire to the most advanced fighter jets and AI programs is technology. It is all the same and all a part of a whole. Technology is not just the most advanced but also the most basic. A spoon is also technology, and so is a matchstick. The grammar of a language is also technology. Technology is therefore many things, and when talking about the relationship between technology and the mind we must understand it is an ancient and highly complex relationship.

Technology has shaped human evolution for over a million years. Our current hand arrangement evolved as a consequence of tool use among early hominins. Shorter thumbs and longer fingers help in climbing. But our ancestors gave up life in the trees and spent more and more time manipulating their environment. Shorter fingers and longer opposable thumbs would have made them better and better at grasping. Over time natural selection could have refined these anatomical changes based on the many ways humans used their hands. The hand position that found favour proved most rewarding for actions like smashing animal bones to collect their high-energy marrow.

You might be thinking that this is the age of automation and AI, so what does it matter when hominins use of tools led to hand evolution. But you forget without a miner separating ore from rocks with his hands, there can be no cutting-edge NASA interplanetary probe. Everything is of a whole and cannot stand by itself. To understand the larger picture and chart our way forward, we must recognize that the primitive and the advanced are a part of the same whole. We humans are not separate from our inventions. They are a part of us and have shaped our very bodies and minds for millions of years.

It is technology that has brought a physically weak species like us humans to the top of the global food chain. In a world without technologies to assist us, we would be more prey than hunter. 

Defining the Mind

Now that we have a basic understanding of technology, we examine the basics of the human mind. Mind is defined as

“Broadly, all intellectual and psychological phenomena of an organism encompassing motivational, affective, behavioural, perceptual, and cognitive systems.” – American Psychological Association.

“The element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons” – Merriam-Webster.

In simple terms, the mind is all those systems in your brain that make you you. It allows you to perceive the world around you, generate emotional reactions, analyse what you are seeing, feeling, and remembering, and then motivates you to act. Ninety percent of you is your mind. This definition should help you realize a vital thing about the mind it is not static. Your mind is constantly changing and evolving from the day you are born to the day you die. 

Much like the computers we use, the mind has two main parts. They are hardware (nerves, glands, etc.) and software (perceptual dispositions, emotional dispositions, cognitive processes). The mind changes over time, both neurologically and psychologically. An example of a profound period of mental change in every human’s life is during puberty. Your perception of the world around you changes. Your emotions and even how you think change as you achieve sexual maturity. Another period of significant neurological change is during old age, particularly age 70 and above. Apart from these periods of drastic neurological and physical changes, the mind is constantly changing and evolving, especially psychologically, based on your life experiences. The birth of a child, losing a loved one, losing a job, and falling in love for the first time profoundly change people. Apart from these pivotal moments, your mind is constantly trying to understand the world around it and adapt accordingly to give you a greater chance of surviving and reproducing.  

To understand how events affect behaviour, I will draw your attention to the methodology we use to train animals. The process is called conditioning. Understanding conditioning is essential because it plays a significant role in how technology affects the mind. There are two types of conditioning Operant conditioning and Classical conditioning. Carrier pigeons, Attack dogs, Racehorses, and drug-sniffing dogs are all trained using conditioning techniques. Conditioning techniques are also used to train and motivate people. Employee bonuses, punishments, and suspensions are all examples of the same. Governments, companies, organizations, etc., often use conditioning techniques to manipulate people without their knowledge. The ethically questionable activity of conditioning people without their consent is a grave concern. Technology often plays the role of enabler and makes unethical conditioning easier to do on a large scale. Both operant conditioning and classical conditioning play a key role in the learning process, memory formation, and motivation. This is why it is important to understand conditioning first to understand the relationship between technology and the mind.

Classical conditioning is the process of you mentally linking up two unrelated stimuli like the scent of food and the ringing of bells. 

Here, stimulus refers to anything that stimulates the nervous system. Trainers use Classical conditioning to get the mind to respond to one stimulus as it would to another. Ivan Pavlov did experiments with dogs that established the basic principles of this method in the late 19th century. 

Pavlov’s goal was to get the dogs to start salivating when a metronome sounds. Pavlov chose dog food as one stimulus because the response to it, namely dog salivating, was unrelated to the experiment. Pavlov used the sound of a metronome as the neutral stimulus or stimulus that elicited no response from the dogs. Pavlov first triggered the metronome sound, gave the dog food, and repeated this procedure several times. After a few rounds, he noticed that the dog started producing saliva on just hearing the metronome. Even without Pavlov offering food, the dog salivated on hearing the sound because Classical Conditioning had occurred. Why is Pavlov’s experiment relevant to you, you might ask? The answer is much of the human brain is very similar to that of animals. Autonomous responses work the same way in humans and other mammals like dogs. Hence the conditioning techniques Pavlov tested in dogs also work in humans.

What is Operant Conditioning? This behaviour modification method is something most people will recognize. When an employee gets a bonus for good work or a child gets punished for misbehaving, that is Operant Conditioning (OC). People use the OC technique to train employees, children, etc.

Operant Conditioning is the method of modifying behaviour by applying reinforcement (rewards) and punishment. 

The influence of conditioning on an action reduces each time it happens without positive or negative reinforcement. If reinforcements and punishments stop, then their effect on behaviour also ceases. Over time, the likelihood of the behaviour goes back to what it was before the use of conditioning. 

The behaviour-altering effect of conditioning increases with the strength of the reward. For example, the bigger the bonus, the more likely an employee is to work hard to get it. Another factor that affects the strength of conditioning is how soon after completing a task, you give the reinforcement. Punishments handed out immediately after someone does something wrong are more effective in preventing repetition than that given a day later. The third factor that affects OC is how often consequences are applied. If the application of Punishment or Reinforcement happens only occasionally, then the conditioning will take longer. However, behaviour modification achieved through the occasional handing out of punishment or reward will take longer to undo.

Memories that have strong emotional content are easier to recall and all of lifeforms, animal or human, want to avoid unpleasant events and experience positive events. This tendency is further reinforced by a bias in human cognition called Peak-End rule.

Peak-End rule is a type of cognitive or thought bias. When recalling memories, we give priority to the peak emotional experiences and the final emotional experience. For example, you go on a holiday to a resort. You have a good time all throughout but on the last day your passport gets stolen. When recalling the holiday in the future, you are more likely to focus on the stress and anxiety you experienced at the end than the fun you had at other times. You will, in all likelihood, remember the holiday as a bad one and never return to the resort. The duration of the event is not relevant to this effect. How we feel about an event is the average of the strongest or peak emotional experience and the final emotional state (Kahneman, 2000). The heuristic is the same whether it is a two-hour meeting, a week-long vacation, or your entire life.  

The Peak-End rule has found practical use in the medical field, where doctors have used it to make patients less averse to painful medical procedures like colonoscopies. The procedures are extended to make the final moments less painful or more pleasant, resulting in the person feeling better about the overall experience. The same principle is also applied in education, where classes ending on a positive note create better learning outcomes. 

Technology and the Mind in Evolutionary Context

While Peak-End rule and Conditioning are not technologies, we are using the knowledge of both to improve human wellbeing. Conditioning is a technique we have been using since the beginning of civilization itself to domesticate animals. Agriculture and the domestication of animals reduced the need for humans to be physically strong. Whether protection, tilling the land, or transportation, trained animals have been helping humans for thousands of years. The reduction in the importance of strength in leading a healthy life made intelligence a more dominant trait in human natural selection. Cultures that adopted agriculture and domesticated animals advanced scientifically and culturally faster. The changes are another example of how knowledge and technology changed the evolution of the human species. Technology has always shaped human existence, and any technology we create in the future will do the same. The fear of technology changing our way of life or even our bodies is therefore lacking context. Change is the one true constant in the universe. Change is necessary for survival. Those species that refuse to change are confined to annals of history. 

Dinosaurs were the unquestionable rulers of Earth for millions of years. Their physical strength matched even the massive industrial machines we use today in factories. But they did not think. They did not evolve to the next level of consciousness. They did not develop the ability to think and problem solve. Consequently, a galactic extinction event wiped them out. The slow process of evolution failed to help them adapt to the global environmental catastrophe created by a meteor strike. They needed technology. Technology creation is the next stage in evolution that Dinosaurs never reached.

Technology is an extension of the mind. It is a part of the evolutionary process and is necessary for the long-term survival of any species. It is not a dirty word. It is not separate from nature. It is not distinct from life. Technological evolution instead reflects a deepening understanding of both nature and existence. 

Therefore, technology is the application of knowledge to change the environment around us or to adapt ourselves to it.