Twenty years ago, the world and the people in it were vastly different than today. To have a relationship, or an interpersonal bond with another, we had to actually walk up and have a conversation face-to-face. Sure we could pick up and dial the phone, but cellular devices consisted of a huge plastic brick. To communicate with massive amounts of people, we had to stand up on a podium and send our voices through cable lines and satellite arrays. Since then, technical innovation has accelerated to breakneck speeds and today, the average person can't travel without tapping away on their smartphone, in an instant sending and receiving information with hundreds if not thousands through networks like Facebook or Twitter. But as amazing as it is, try to imagine what twenty years into the future will look like at the current rate of advances. Will we be even more connected, albeit with less intimacy? As humans become more and more networked, there's a chance the traits that make us human may start to lose relevance. Things like strong emotion, companionship, and the survival instinct could be tossed to the wayside as we increasingly live digitally. On the other hand, some believe we will soon have the capacity to communicate without saying a word or even touching a single device. Information would spread effortlessly, requiring no physical medium and little to no time lapse. As microchips and circuit boards get smaller and smaller into the nanoscale, smartphones will soon seem like relics of a simpler past. However, does this mean we will eventually discard our humanity in favor of ones and zeros? How could modalities for treatment and therapy develop to take full advantage of a rapidly changing lifestyle?
http://jetpress.org/v19/marsen.htm
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