Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society

by Ogyen Trinley Dorje

New technologies are ostensibly introduced to address problems we face and to improve our lives. However, if we do not engage with them in deeper ways, this force that is meant to make our life better all too often can end up making our lives silly. From my point of view, far from truly enriching or nourishing us in any substantial way, our constant connectivity can easily end up trivializing our lives. Our communication of human emotion is reduced to emoticons. When our friends share their joys and pains on Facebook, rather than truly reach out to share those experiences with them, we click “Like” and might not even add a personal comment before we move on to another page. We may think communications technology is adding spice and flavor, but in the end it can detract from the meaning and purpose of our lives, making our lives lite. When I look at its place in our lives today, I often feel that technology is using us, rather than us using technology. For this reason, it is important for each of us to look carefully at our own personal use of technology or, more to the point, look at how our use of technology impacts us. We can start by asking ourselves: “What does it do to me to engage with technology in this way? How does it actually make me feel? What benefits do I expect to gain? What am I willing to give up in order to gain those benefits?” We focus so intensely on the screen in front of us that we lose our perspective and greatly exaggerate its importance as a source...