IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2014 - 5

EDITORIAL

We've Got
to Do Better

KATHERINE
ALBRECHT

KATINA MICHAEL

ach year, thousands of film buffs gather at
These issues are not just coming to a head in Asia,
the Sundance International Film Festival in
but everywhere screen technologies are in use. Israeli
park City, UT, U.S.A., to see the offerings of
filmmaker Shosh Shlam of Web Junkie explains
the world's brightest filmmakers. If it's true
that IAD is "a universal issue that is becoming
that movies reflect the preoccupations and obsessions
progressively all encompassing, as the boundaries
of the larger culture, it's eye opening that three of the
between the real and the virtual become increasingly
twelve contenders for international documentary film
blurred" [4].
this year address the dark side of screen technology.
Love Child, looks at the tragic 2010 death by
The Look Down Generation [5]
neglect of a three-month-old baby named "Sarang"
There is a reason this theme is playing out on the
("Love" in Korean), when her parents spent up to
big screen: it reflects the drama playing out on little
twelve hours a day playing the game Prius, caring for
screens everywhere, in nearly every human life in
their avatar child "Anima," while leaving their real
the industrialized world. From smart phones to Wiis,
child alone to starve to death [1].
from ipods and ipads to Xboxes - excessive screen
Web Junkie goes behind the scenes of a Chinese
time resonates with nearly everyone, especially those
detox camp for adolescent video
of us with children, or with even the
game addicts, documenting the draslightest inclination towards addicHow many times
conian measures they employ. The
tion ourselves.
have we said, "I'm
Chinese declared Internet Addiction
Let's face it, if not addicted, we've
Disorder (IAD) to be a clinical disorgrown uncannily fond of the glowing
just going to check
der in 2008 [2].
mobile devices we carry with us all
my email"-only to
Happiness documents the introday long and the gaming consoles
find ourselves, two
duction of technology to one of the
we plug ourselves into at night. The
hours later, with
remaining "net-free" spaces on earth -
benefits of speedier communication,
rural Bhutan. The film centers on
instant access to information, and
papers ungraded,
an eight-year-old boy raised to be a
chores undone, and cheap and plentiful entertainment
Buddhist monk, as he and his fammake them almost too compelling to
dinner unmade?
ily take a three-day trek to the city to
avoid. But we're beginning to see that
buy a television. When asked if the
these benefits come at a considerable
television will bring him happiness, he unhesitatingly
cost. If we lose our spare time to these machines, is
exclaims "Yes!" Of course, we viewers, wiser and
that too high a price to pay?
more jaded, think of the mind-numbing time waste of
Artists are often the first to sound the alarm at socireality television and cluck our tongues, saddened to
ety's excesses, but you don't have to go to Sundance
think how quickly he will learn that things are not as
to see that we've all been collectively mesmerized.
he might imagine them to be [3].
Nor do you need a research grant to see the socioethical impacts all around you. You can do your own
field observations on your way to work, in a coffee
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2014.2300948
shop, on campus. How many people, young and old,
Date of publication: 10 March 2014
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SprING 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2014