Rise of the Technophobes: A Survey of our Contemporary Landscape

In Greek, phobos (fear) and techne (art, skill, craft) combined is the fear or dislike of advanced technology or complex devices, especially computers. Sometimes known as “technofear” the meaning of technophobia becomes more complex as technology continues to evolve. We might call someone a technophobe if we believe they hold an irrational fear, but others contend those fears are justified.

“One of the more alarming situations related to fear of technology is a doomsday scenario. From sentient robots bent on destruction to missiles that launch themselves and begin World War III, films, literature, and TV shows are filled with "technology gone wrong." These popular depictions of the modern apocalypse fueled by technology can contribute to the fear of new technologies. Speculation about the impact of artificial intelligence, for example, may also play a part in fear of the future of technology. (Fritscher, Lisa. verywellmind.com, 2022, May 17, What is Technophobia?)

Larry Rosen, a research psychologist at California State University suggested there are three dominant subcategories of technophobes – the "uncomfortable users", the "cognitive computerphobes", and "anxious computerphobes". First receiving widespread notice during the Industrial Revolution, technophobia has been observed to affect various societies and communities throughout the world. This has caused some groups to take stances against some modern technological developments in order to preserve their ideologies. In a few cases, new technologies conflict with established beliefs, such as the personal values of simplicity and modest lifestyles. (Wikipedia.com, Technophobia, 31 Jan 23)

To counterbalance technophobia, in the UK, “digital volunteers” are being enlisted to offset an influential 2021 report by Age UK which found that the over-75s are the age group least likely to use the internet. The study found that only 15 per cent of the nearly two million offline in this age group had an interest in getting online at all. Of those who said they would like to use the internet more frequently or for more tasks, including those were are already online, a lack of IT skills was perceived to be the biggest barrier, with four-fifths (79 percent) of over-75s citing this as a key factor. (Dodd, Aja. thenorthernecho.co.uk, 30 Jan 23, Age UK North Yorkshire & Darlington seeks digital volunteers)

Technophobia is not limited to the uneducated novice. Others may avoid smartphones and devices for political or security reasons, as is the well-known case of Vladimir Putin. "He has long refused to use the internet for fear of digital surveillance, Russian and U.S. officials have said, making him more dependent on briefing documents compiled by ideologically aligned advisers," cited the report. (Tamin, Baba. interestingengineering.com, 24 Dec 22, Vladimir Putin’s technophobia out of the fear of espionage could cost him Ukraine war)

In other cases, technophobia is not a fear of the present condition, rather the fear of an unknown future condition, as is the case with Keumars Afifi-Sabet. He writes, “On several fronts, technology is threatening the viability of human artistic expression. DALL·E 2 didn’t frighten me because scientists can generate an image of ‘teddy bears working on new AI research underwater with 1990s technology’, but because of what might come next. The use cases for DALL·E 2 are vast, and could mean fewer opportunities for photographers, graphic designers and illustrators.” (Afifi-Sabet, Keumars. Itpro.co.uk, 27 Sep 22, Art is on its knees - and AI will deliver the killer blow)

Technophobia has been slowly, steadily, and quietly growing for some time, but more notably presently emerging over the last few years. The screenwriter of the 2022 Sci-fi horror movie “M3GAN” said, “We wrote this five years ago now. At the time I was like, “AI that can have a conversation with you, that can babysit your kids, is weird and creepy. What is going to happen when that evolves?” I’ve seen the ones that can write stories and its like, “Do I need to go into another line of employment?” I was always wary about Alexa and Echo. Early on it came out that these devices are listening to you at all times. I don’t need the [National Security Agency] listening in to me talking to myself as I’m writing violent horror scenes.” (Yamato, Jen. latimes.com, 5 Jan 23, The writer behind ‘M3GAN’ on its bonkers horror (and why it used to be ‘way gorier’))

Technophobes, sometimes known as Luddites, “…worry that technology has strip-mined jobs, atomized society, and become a tool of political evil. Social media, we once believed during the Arab Spring, would destroy despots; it’s now the number one weapon in the despot’s arsenal. The internet has become the world’s largest crime scene, littered with victims of child exploitation, racial hatred, misogyny, stalking: you name it, all hell is here.

With the invention of the Ai-Da robot, we learned Ai-Da was walking a thin line between technology and humanism. One of the things that made her more human was her ability to paint. "It" made a case for the role of technology in art – even alluding to the solipsistic (at least for a robot) argument that the camera’s invention brought about a renaissance in the visual arts. Ai-Da also chillingly mentioned, as an aside, that inventions like "her" (?) “ can be both a threat and an opportunity for artists”. Experience teaches us threat usually trumps opportunity when it comes to technology … if there’s money to be made. And there’s always money to be made. (Mackay, Neil. heraldscotland.com, 13 Oct 22, The robots are coming, and we should dread the dystopian future we’ve created)

In the sci-fi comedy ‘Atlas, the Lonely Gibbon,’ a work from home editor is surrounded by appliances that start misbehaving after her tech-savvy husband leaves the apartment for work each day. The play doesn’t dwell on the technical and moral questions around the use of AI. Instead, it explores how modern technology is exacerbating the disconnection of two people who by profession should be able to verbalize what they need from each other. One of the strongest observations in the script comes when Irene (the wife) comments on how people often say disconnected or illogical things to each other simply to create and maintain connection, neatly illustrating the vast and perhaps unbridgeable distance between humans and machines. (Hollingworth, Jenny. sonomacountygazette.com, 16 Aug 22, Review: Atlas, the Lonely Gibbon)

Much of our modern technophobia can be traced to Hollywood’s imagination. “The gulag-like machine rooms of Fritz Lang's 1927 epic Metropolis, and the insidious assembly lines of Charlie Chaplin's 1936 comedy Modern Times. In both cases, the filmmakers were consciously exposing audiences to common fears of their era: an extension of the industrial revolution so dramatic that humankind itself ended up crushed under all the new machinery.

But as technology began to evolve beyond looms and assembly lines, so did its role in entertainment. In the 1950s and 1960s, stories about automatons gave way to stories about the nuclear bomb. In 1964, Stanley Kubrick's legendary jet-black satire Dr. Strangelove tackled the fallibility of doomsday machines — and just four years later, Kubrick returned to the cold logic of 2001: A Space Odyssey's Hal 9000 for a parable about the unchecked advance of the microchip.

 Has anything really changed? Technology continues its role as one of the big screen's go-to antagonists. Whether it's hacked by activists (Live Free or Die Hard, Misson: Impossible—Ghost Protocol,), used and abused by people in power (Looper, Elysium), or simply engineered to eradicate the human race (The Terminator and Matrix movies), the message from Hollywood is just as clear now as it was in the past: technology is not to be trusted. ” (Bettridge, Daniel. Theweek.com, 9 Jan 2015, Why, Robot? 80 years of Hollywood technophobia)

From the big screen to our smaller screens, the power of screen horror can bring the undercurrent of social conservatism and technophobia that has for so long been associated with screens, and the potential power they have over us, to the forefront of our minds. When successful, they leave the viewer skeptical or afraid, even if just for a short time, of the screens that they use in their homes. Whilst these films could seem hypocritical for criticizing screens on the screen, it is actually by doing this that they can so effectively play to our fears. If we learn to fear the screens too much then we will turn them off forever, losing the film as an art form, but it is in the grip of that fear itself that we enjoy every moment we watch, building up our immunity just enough until the next scare puts us back in our unsettled place. (Banks, Robyn. Thenorwichradical.com, 25 Jul 2018, The Incredible Power of Screen Horror)

From the screen to the written word, Andrew O’Hagan, editor with the London Review of Books, writes beautifully about the toll technophobia can take on family relationships and our journey as a human being. “My mum died recently, and I realized, in the middle of it all, that a special world of technophobia had gone with her. She didn’t know what the internet was. She had never sent or received an email. Her phone, devious and self-involved, was an instrument of torture to her: making promises it couldn’t keep; showing caring messages covered in love hearts that instantly disappeared, never to be found again; lighting up, at all times of day and night, with graphics and noises only her grandchildren could decipher.

 Every day was a digital Golgotha. She felt scourged by technological advances and nostalgic for simple things that didn’t work. The big cupboard in her hall was like outer space, a cosmos indoors, full of junk and old gadgetry floating through time, dead appliances that still hinted at their powers of improvement. I felt she was keeping them for a happier domestic life in the next world, or for the past to return in this one, shaking us out of our need for better radios.” (O’Hagan, Andrew, lrb.co.uk, 21 Apr 22, A Cosmos Indoors)

Much like the dialing the right radio frequency, technophobes find themselves forced into a new kind of cybernetic art in a theatrical shapeshifting tournament. A 2018 exhibition at the Lille Metropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art told the story of early experiments leading to the first cybernetic sculptures in art history. One reviewer wrote, “The show closes with Schöffer very much swinging between the nerdy technology-means-progress and groovy love-in poles.

The show features this dynamic with the immersive scale of his ornate “Le Prisme” project, designed so that translucent screened walls of enormous spaces could be theoretically filled with moving chromatic effects in non-repetitive rhythmic combinations. Such strenuously flabbergasting and preposterous pop displays bolster the general undertone of the modish ‘visionary’ nature of Schöffer’s work, associating his flashing and spinning techno-decorative oeuvre with magical management and paranormal paradises.” (Nechvatal, Joseph. Hyperallergic.com, 4 May 2018, The Visionary Modernist Experiments of Nicolas Schoffer)

Well, you might think you need a snack by now. Heading to the kitchen, we’re reminded that the polarization between technology advocates and naysayers extends to the very food we eat. “Flash forward to today and alternative protein seems to be advancing as planned. Plant-based products are experiencing rapid market growth. A host of studies have demonstrated their relative environmental benefits, particularly compared to conventional meat production. The science of cell-cultured meat has continued to advance as well, bolstered by an influx of recent investment, even as big questions remain about its long-term viability as a consumer product.

 That success, however, has now drawn the ire of thought leaders and scholars, including Bittman himself, who seems to have completely changed his mind about alternative protein and its promise. The critique put forth by countless food writers tends to coalesce around a key set of claims pertaining to the environmental and health impacts of these technologies, as well as their place within the political economy of food and agriculture. As critics never tire of pointing out, alternative proteins are not a silver bullet solution to the many problems of the global food system. (Dutkiewica, Jan and Broad, Garrett. Foodtank.com, undated, Opinion Editorial: Getting Real About Fake Meat)

Maybe we should put on some music instead. “[In] Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Kendrick’s sprawling, omnivorous double album, is loosely structured as a series of therapy sessions in which he laments the banality of wealth and burrows into his childhood to find the roots of a sex addiction. It’s concerned with masculinity, the efficacy of protest, and the weight of hip-hop fans’ expectations. But it’s mostly about phones and the internet.

[Lamar] Kendrick — who early on recounts “text messaging bitches until [his] thumbs hurt” — is obsessed not only with how those things enable our basest, most lustful selves, but the ways they commodify what should be uncommodifiable [sic] and render virtually all communication insincere. His complaints about online life are sometimes incoherent, other times too obvious; that lack of calibration mimics the music itself, which is in places preening and overwrought. But Kendrick remains a superlatively talented vocalist and frequently surprising writer whose thorniest verses are among his most compelling.” (Thompson, Paul. Mic.com, 17 May 22, On Mr. Morale & The Big Stepps, Kendrick Lamar Begs You to Put Your Phone Down)

Some technophobia is tied to block chain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and the emerging metaverse. “Critics have scoffed that a marriage between NFTs and the art world is impossible. But catering to the tastes of the crypto nouveau riche has become the frantic obsession of the commercial art world, which is reshaping itself around these new collectors nearly a year after artists like Beeple and Pak sold NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, for tens of millions of dollars, inspiring the typically technophobic art industry to head into the metaverse…

 Even as they court collectors from the metaverse, art galleries are going further, embracing the technology that threatens their business model. Many have invested in digital platforms. Industry experts say it is an opportunity for dealers to limit incentives for their artists to cut them out as the middlemen and independently sell their work.” (Small, Zachary. Nytimes.com, 13 Feb 22, After Pak and Beeple, What’s Next for NFT Collectors? Art Made With a Paintbrush)

Techophobia extends far beyond the humanities alone. Those unwilling to try a new electric vehicle; or new satellite television service, or even a new hotel room door key may comprise a larger percentage of people than we’d like to admit. Still, as a rapidly amassing and united technophobe community, increased polarization is bound to create art and technology chasms we may not ever be able to cross.

At Metaverse Consortium Group on Linkedin, we have over 37,000 global art and technology pros who are 2023 thought leaders. You really should join us. If you would like to see more top-of-the-line AI art, our page on Instagram @providentialgallery serves as a chronology of developing tech. Finally, we are recurring speakers and collaborators in the fields of metaverse and associated art and technology developments, if you would like some time on my calendar, please book it here. Thank you and see you again next week!

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