Philosophy 101D

At first, I couldn’t decide if I was on Heidegger or Gehlen’s side.  At first I thought that there was no way that we could be completely dependent on technology.  There must still be some innate part of us that would be able to fend for itself in the wild without any modern technology.  I agree with Heidegger on the point that technology poses dangers to the world.  I think that technology has the potential to blind us to the real world.  Through technology we are told what is cool, what to do, how to act, which cell phone to buy, etc. etc. After thinking about the comment “we are chained to technology” further, I have come to really agree with it.  There is not a minute during the day when I do not have my cell phone by my side.  I have to check my email a dozen times a day because that seems to be the only form of communication on a college campus.  People are so dependent on technology and most of the time I think that people don’t even realize this.  Technology is something that is so ingrained on our society that we don’t realize how dependent on it we really are.  To me, technology can be seen everywhere: the silverware we use to eat our food, the alarm clock that wakes us up every morning, the toothbrush we use to brush our teeth.  How could we make it through the day without technology?  I honestly don’t think that our society could function without technology.  Because of this, I completely agree with Gehlen’s statement about how “we are chained to technology.”  I believe that technology is much more advanced now and we may not necessarily need these advancements.  We could survive with less advanced technology, which I think is part of what Heidegger was getting at.  However, even thought we could survive with simpler technology, we couldn’t survive without technology all together.  Therefore, I have decided that I agree with Gehlen.