Why Can't Technology Make Us Happy?

Technological advancement is not making us happy. Actually, it is not the job in the purpose of technological advancement to make us happy. The purpose of technology is to make our lives easier, more comfortable, and probably very highly efficient.

Can an Expensive Car Make You Happy?

Let me give you an example, if we get a high-tech car, the car can offer us very high comfort. It can offer us high efficiency in terms of speed with less fuel consumption. And it probably might even offer us a very high status.

But it is possible that in a really expensive, luxurious car, one may be sitting there and feeling absolutely miserable. He or she can think to themselves, "I know the car can't make me happy, but isn't it better to cry in a Bentley than in a Honda City?"

We're not against the fact that technology offers us incredibly efficient systems to live comfortably and we should use them happily.

Spiritual wisdom and ethics teach us that we should take responsibility for our own happiness on ourselves. Don’t leave the responsibility of being happy to a car or to a house or to a gadget or to money or to other people. Let us take the responsibility of being happy by ourselves.

Moral Knowledge

Let me give you another example, technology has contributed to us super highly sophisticated communication systems. Today is the day and age of smartphones. Our communications have become super-fast, super-efficient, and super technically astute.

We are really in an age of high-speed communication technology. It gives us super sophisticated communication systems. Moral knowledge teaches us what to use from those communication systems and what is the purpose of the use. It gives knowledge of constructive or destructive purposes.

A knife in the hands of a hoodlum will take a life and a knife in the hands of a surgeon can save a life. We should have ethical knowledge so that we can choose the right path always. We should know what and how to use technology for constructive and well-being purposes.

Ethical Guidance

We must adore, admire, and appreciate all the technocrats for contributing to human life's utility. We can use what has been created for a comfortable and efficient life at the same time.

Ethical guidance teaches us how to take the responsibility of our happiness on ourselves. We require emotional stability in the form of deep gratifying relationships, social generosity in the form of a sense of contribution that provides a meaningful and purposeful life, and spiritual serenity in the form of our connection with divinity and God.

Yes! Technology can contribute to our utility but the responsibility to lead a happy life is entirely up to us.