Why is it that our culture is so ready to adopt new technologies into our lives without questioning the validity of them first? New technologies are being pushed on the public at an alarming rate, while not very many people seem to be asking both if we need the tools, and how the tools are affecting us. Far too often our new technologies are integrated into our lives without a clear knowledge of how they work, and how people should/could use the technologies to satisfy their own personal needs.

To truly understand something, people must take an unbiased perspective on what they are looking at. Obviously, it is impossible for humans to see anything as the truth, because of their weak empirical senses. Humans have known this for quite some time now, as seen in the writings of such persons as Francis Bacon who came up with the theory of Idols. This theory explains how human biases often get in the way of truth. To look objectively at a new technology, first we must look at ourselves and put our own prejudices and opinions aside and look at the tool with a fresh perspective.

Most technologies are an extension of human experiences. For example, a car can be considered an extension of the feet, and radio can be considered an extension of the ear (it enables us to hear great distances). These extensions of the senses can, and do influence the way in which people perceive their environments. That is why it is so important that people studying any technology should attempt to remove themselves first from its influence before attempting to study it. It is quite hard to study something that you are emerged in, and influenced by. If people want to understand how they are affected by a technology, they should first look at what that technology extends in themselves, as well as how it makes the extension. Obviously this is hard to do for most people, but in trying to understand our environment, we actually find out much about ourselves.

The contemporary world’s technologies are being developed at an expanding rate every year. It is hard for most people to comprehend how to deal with all the new technologies, especially since there has never been such a growth in technology as in the present day. Most new technologies create an imbalance in our psychic equilibrium. That is, the technologies affect us by just being around us, and distort the impressions of our environment by our involvement with them. This change is most often unconscious, and so we often aren’t aware of the constant flux our unconscious minds are in even though we are definitely deeply affected by the new conditions. This is partly what McLuhan theorized with his famous saying "The medium is the message" although the whole meaning behind the saying is much more complicated. The better we can understand the power of the technologies that we are immersing ourselves within, the better we will be able to procede into the future using our tools in more favorable ways than we have been able to in the past.

We have many technologies in our lives which have serious side-effects that almost no one knows about, such as the effects of television. Almost every home in North America has a television, yet very few people actually know about the addictive and harmful qualities that television watching can have on their lives. Whenever there are people who raise their voices to acknowledge the harm caused by television or other major technologies, they almost always get drowned out by people with control over large segments of mass media. The people selling technologies do not want the majority of citizens to be aware of what is happening to them; it might take away from sales. This is very important to note, inasmuch as it shows that there are forces out there that are trying to distort people’s perceptions of the technologies in their lives into a more favourable view.

In order to utilize any tool to its fullest potential, there must be a clear understanding by the user of how it operates. Unfortunately, most new technologies are not entirely understood when they are first introduced on the market. The introduction of the personal computer (PC) is a good example of this. Most people who bought a PC did so because of the promise that it would make the owners' lives easier. Most people who bought into this new technology, however, knew nothing of how to operate a PC nor how one works, and were left frustrated and confused. So many people bought into a new technology that they knew nothing about because the people producing and selling this technology spend most of their advertising money not on selling the individual products but rather on promoting the desire for bigger, better, and faster products. People in businesses realized long ago that the way to sell their products is to sell the desire for the products, rather than the actual products themselves. If people want the biggest and most powerful product out there, it doesn’t matter what type of tool or new medium the businesses are selling. Most people are easily persuaded into buying new technologies as well as newer versions of older technologies for the aforementioned easons, as well as for their magical properties.

The magical properties of new technologies seem to compel people’s interest, perhaps for the lack of real magic and excitement in their lives promised by advertising and other materialistic propaganda that is unattainable by any human alive. When I use the term "magic," I refer to the idea that when someone doesn’t know how something works, it seems magical. For example, the laser technology of CD's tended to amaze most people when they were first introduced, because they are so much more complicated than the simple needle and grooves of the vinyl records. People didn’t completely understand how CD’s worked, and so they seemed to have a magical mystique to them. The same thing happens with most new technologies. The magic tends to blind people’s senses to the truth of the tool, and thus making it even harder to distinguish how we are really affected by it.

Of course the tools themselves are not to blame; it is the use of the tool that distinguishes its worth. A gun, for example, is not bad. However, using one to kill is considered bad. That is why it is so important that we look at new technologies, as well as the old ones, and look at how we use them in our lives. Through education we can make better use of our tools and eventually strive for complete understanding of our environment.

Every human has a biased opinion about technologies, especially those in the business of selling them. This is why it is so important that people learn about their own environments, and how their lives are contorted by outside influences. Only through learning and understanding can one ever hope to understand themselves and their environments enough to make a significant difference. When being introduced to a new technology, I encourage everyone to examine it with an unbiased eye to perceive if they really need the tool, or if they simply have a desire for magic.