The advice of choice, is to simply disconnect. Get off your smartphones and other smart devices that keep you connected to the Internet. As easy as this sounds, many people rely on this technology to fill out their daily lives. Whether it be for work or “play”. It is not as easy, in today’s society to just, “shut it off”. As Marshall McLuhan might say, they have become extensions of ourselves.

If a generation is born into this technology and style of living, does the mental health challenge of disconnecting for improved mental health still apply? Or does the scope of what mental health will look like, change in the future, because people are more reluctant to disengage? There are many dystopic views of what the future looks like (heavily influenced by science-fiction), in terms of technology taking over human welfare. More recent 21st Century films like “Surrogates”(2009) and Pixar created “Wall-E” (2008), hold as examples of the future of the human condition immersed as reflections of ourselves engaged with technology.

The advancement of the tech world is often beyond our layman scope, but in the wings of tech giants and industry, there is a lot more going on than we are aware of. Think about the Internet, (1983- Network of Networks, 1990- WWW) how long ago it was conceived before it came into the hands and available to the public masses. Just think about the cost of computers and how far along that old technology has come. Today we basically hold mini-computers in our hands. Now chip implants in our bodies are gaining traction, which began with ideas of “The Cyborg”. (Kevin Warwick’s 1998- “Project Cyborg” is when he had an array of chips implanted into his arms to ideations of becoming a cyborg)

As social commentators, a lot of insight can be gained by watching the artists of past generations, where you can see the involvement of technology and art collide. You can view it either in present state of today or as past history. Between 1997-2002 is where I retained most of my information on the implications of the use of technology and art, and future implications. Today’s age(or perhaps it’s already history), you now see many MIT graduates collaborating with artists on projects that have more inclusion on the advancements of technology. Artists have been attracted to the implications of technology since the Digital Revolution (Third Industrial Revolution)