How Far Will Technology Take Us?

            Cultural limitations can come in many forms, and technology will surely bring some new limitations to the table.  On a massive communications scale, we all know the strain of dealing with robotic customer service calls.  So technology has since then influenced our culture to rely heavily on digital communication.  People of all demographics are using more mobile devices to get the information they want and need, so communicators have to produce data through these mediums.  The one piece of solidarity with media communications is that the story must remain powerful and draw in the audience regardless of the technology involved.  This idea can be compared to that of upgrading graphic technology in a video or a game, the user becomes uninterested if the publication is more about the technology than the content (Kolodzy, 2013, p. 165). 

            So how far can technology take us?  How much of our reality is going to become intertwined with our digital identity?  Well, many different companies are working on devices that take reality to the next step as explained by (Wall) in his BBC article Can technology help us improve upon reality?.  Augmented reality is a term that is easy to misinterpret, as virtual reality has been the thought up to this point.  Augmented reality is better, and this is because it allows the user to see and interact with digital representations, and they can manipulate the object in their physical surrounding.  The user can then share any information and ideas by digital means, and they can thus communicate with the world.  Microsoft has revealed an augmented reality headset called the HoloLens, and a video portrayal of the device can be found here:

            Not to give this post a dark undertone, but do we continue to improve upon technologies that seem to be slowly consuming our society in some aspects?  Can we ensure that improved technologies won’t go haywire and take us into a robotic apocalypse?  Or should we simply improve our way of thinking, and remain content with a certain level of connectivity?  Do these augmented reality devices have long term effects on our physical health?  Regardless, only time will give the ultimate answers, but I hope to inspire the reader to think.  I hope to help you open your imagination and wonder for a moment about what limitations technology already presents, and how far we should go before limiting our cultural involvement with technology.  So I ask, is there a stopping point?   

References

Camera Caught. (2015, January 22). Microsoft revealed the HoloLens augmented-reality headset: YouTube. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm2gnnyyvEg

Kolodzy, J. (2013). Practicing Convergence Journalism: An Introduction To Cross-Media Storytelling. New York: Routledge.

Wall, M. (2016, February 23). Can technology help us improve upon reality? BBC Website. Retrieved from BBC Website: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35629715