Today, life depends on technology: traveling, learning, working, cooking—the use of tech, apps, and mobile devices is increasingly becoming more complex. While the benefits are numerous, the systematic use of technology might come with a downside: losing natural abilities.
In this article, you’ll find out more about low-tech practices, technophobia, how to balance technology and ecology, and what the future holds for these industries.
Losing touch with low-tech practices
As opposed to high-tech, low technology is considered simple technology, often done with the help of traditional crafts or tools that are predating the industrial revolution. Anyone can practice low technology with a minimum of investment, and the knowledge of the practice can be taught and learned without the need for specialization.
Overall, low-tech is easy, adaptable, and reparable, requiring little resources or energy, being very eco-friendly. And we practice it sometimes without even noticing it: for example, biking to work and repairing our own devices.
However, people are always at risk of losing touch with their low-tech practices. Moreover, the recent pandemic has enhanced the idea that society is so accustomed to technology that it becomes obvious only in its absence. Wealthy countries developed infrastructures to deliver technology, but society is also dependent on the ecosystem and its services. These are services that existed before the appearance of technology.
These services might have been taken for granted, but today, countries are realizing the importance of balancing ecology and technology, although there has always been tension between the two of them.
Speaking of losing touch, research studies have found that with the generalization of the car, people lost their natural ability to walk properly. This is one of the reasons why technophobia came into existence, as the first environmental movement.
What is “technophobia”?
People’s relationship with technology was a complicated one throughout the years, and tensions have caused different countries to shift towards technophobia or technophilia, the latter being more prevalent in the past years. The term technophobia originated from the Industrial Revolution when people believed that machines are responsible for alienating people from nature.
There is a constant need for society to work in harmony with the environment, and it is not new. In fact, when environmentalism, as an organized movement developed at the end of the 19th century in the US, there was a much clearer image of the relationship between technophobia and ecology.
Balancing technology and ecology
Including the need for a balance between technology and ecosystem services in the debate of the general public—is essential nowadays. People should have access to information and be aware of the importance of services provided by natural resources. Without this debate, the balance between high-tech and low-tech is affected. Environmental risks might be taken for granted or even ignored.
People shouldn’t forget how vital environmental services are for the quality of life.
Is the future of humankind a high-tech one?
There have been debates and discussions on whether our needs as people will be increasingly high-tech. Skeptical ecologists, however, support the idea of low-tech, believing that technology might do more harm than good: for example, pollution or destroying natural resources. But technology is part of the future, as it has led humankind to progress, whether it’s about medicine or discovering new sources of energy.
Low-tech supporters hope that there will be a balance between technology and ecology, even though the future looks more and more high-tech.
