I was working on a group project late last quarter when I received a harsh email from one of my partners. After discussing what parts of the report she was working on, she wrote, “you have been ignoring my calls and texts which is unacceptable.” She was half-right. Apparently the others in the group had been texting each other back and forth, as well as attempting to call me, for the five hours prior to me receiving that email. I, however, was not deliberately ignoring her; not expecting any urgent calls that night, I left my phone in my dorm room before leaving to study in the basement of Green.

The assumption behind her comment was that I was checking my phone regularly. And for college students in the heart of Silicon Valley, that is hardly an unreasonable assumption to make; breaks in class are filled with people pulling out their phones to check emails; lulls in conversations are replaced with responding to texts; buzzes and bright screens always and everywhere. I reckon that six years ago, maybe even three, a text or phone call that went unanswered for a handful of hours would not have warranted the response I received. Times, of course, have changed, although I’m not sure for the better. Not only do we own more devices, but we engage with them far more often. Have our conversations and classes gotten less interesting? Doubtful. Rather, we are more reliant than ever on our digital devices and less tactful with when we use them.

The individual, however, should not shoulder all the blame; the system he operates in demands subservience. For instance, while perhaps once owning a smartphone was a legitimate option, possessing what was once a luxury device will soon be a necessity. Airports and museums are replacing textual signs with QR codes; valuable applications are being developed only for smartphones; many of those who are constantly connected to their devices operate under the assumption that everyone else is, or should be, similarly engaged with their technologies. Thus novel technologies, while they may begin as optional products, do not remain optional. So although Google Glass, the wearable computer, might now be a prototype, and in a few years will be a product only the wealthy can afford, it or a close derivative will soon enter the mainstream. And soon after that, major facets of our lives will be designed around the technology.

Are humans ready for Google Glass? If they are, will they be ready for the next wave of computer technology? Were they even ready for smartphones, or the internet? Even if the Silicon Valley elite are willing to profoundly change the human condition, the rest of the world may not be; the values revered here—efficiency, scalability, and profitability—are not as important, or are even looked down upon, in other communities and cultures. But due to the penetration of technology discussed earlier, those who do not necessarily share the same values as the tech elite are all but forced to adopt the newest products and services and ways of life.

Humans were not “designed” under conditions of near-constant connectivity; the vast majority of our evolution occurred in the pre-industrial era. Expect resistance, then, from our bodies. Expect depression, rebellion, alienation. Expect drugs and entertainment to be front and center in an attempt to “cure” us of these ills. This used to be the realm of science fiction—think soma in Brave New World or mood organs in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep—but now we need only look at the increasing number of youth who are diagnosed with ADHD and then prescribed drugs to “fix” their “disorder” to see evidence of growing psychological distress and a corresponding over-reliance on medication.

For these reasons, I am wary of the Code.org video, “What Most Schools Don’t Teach,” that has recently been in the news. The video is a celebrity-stacked PSA explaining why today’s youth should learn computer programming. Two of the final speakers in the video have these concluding words to say: “the programmers of tomorrow are the wizards of the future” and “[coding] is the closest thing we have to a superpower.” They might as well have labeled themselves Gods. And for all intents and purposes, these and other programmers and engineers are playing the role of God, designing products that aim to provide humans with longer, more efficient, and ostensibly happier lives. Being God, though, comes with supreme responsibility. Those who used to be at the forefront of a given technology—the atomic bomb scientists or early internet developers, for instance—were relatively philosophical when reflecting on their technologies. Yet for the programmers portrayed in the video, with their unbridled enthusiasm and colorful offices filled with drum sets and Ping-Pong tables, humanism appears to be of minimal concern.

Connect with Adam at [email protected].