Why Our Tech-Driven World Needs the Humanities
In this inescapably technological time, our lives are continuously altered by innovation. Although we acquiesce, we often do so with mixed feelings: can we realistically develop meaningful friendships on Facebook? Can personal privacy really be guaranteed by information anonymity? How does the permanent possibility of digitally connecting with others elsewhere alter face-to-face engagement? Many attempts to understand the effects of technology on us appeal to external, quantitative metrics: How many hours people spend on Facebook, the ways in which reliance on GPS for navigation alters the brain, and so forth. In this lecture, our 2018-2021 Arnold Chair, Professor Kirk Besmer, will argue that critical self-reflection is necessary to fully understand our current technological situation and to respond to it appropriately—and that that kind of self-reflection is cultivated primarily through a study of the humanities.
- When:
- 4 p.m.
- Where:
- Gonzaga University, 502 E. Boone Ave.
- Phone:
- 509-313-6661
- Email:
- shellenberger@gonzaga.edu
- Website:
- http://www.gonzaga.edu/
- More like this:
- College: Gonzaga, Lecture/Seminar