In this blog post, I reflect on the meaning of true happiness by revisiting the value of human emotions and relationships, which have grown dull amidst convenience, through the cross-section of technological civilization society depicted in the movie 『WALL-E』.
Recently, I rewatched my favorite movie, ‘WALL-E’. ‘WALL-E’ is a film about a robot left alone on an Earth filled with trash and the story of that robot’s love. It’s a truly beautiful and entertaining film, and it was still great even upon rewatching. However, this time around, I felt something different compared to before.
The film depicts humans who abandoned the polluted Earth living on a spaceship where everything is automated. What caught my eye was how people conversed with those beside them only through screens, never seeing each other directly. Back in 2008 when the film came out, such a scene felt like an utterly absurd, exaggerated fantasy of the future. Yet in 2024, that scene is no longer just a movie fantasy. People’s phones have become smartphones, and we live immersed in those small screens all day long. Facebook made connecting with people easier and more convenient, yet it pushed those right beside us further away. Now, it’s common to see people sitting across from each other in cafes, each staring only at their own phones. Back when ‘WALL-E’ was released, the idea of people conversing without looking at each other’s faces was unimaginable. Yet today, it’s common even when meeting friends to avoid looking at each other. Fears about the distant future, once dismissed as mere worry, have become reality much sooner than expected. And within this, I recalled a clichéd question: Does technological progress truly make humans happy?
We all know the answer to that clichéd question. Technological progress doesn’t solely make humans happy. While smartphones have indeed made our lives incredibly convenient, it’s hard to say they’ve made us happier. But knowing this fact didn’t change anything. Questions and discussions about the direction of technological development remained mere armchair theorizing, and in the meantime, the future we feared had already arrived at our doorstep. Even things we now dismiss as exaggerated, distant future scenarios might become our reality before we know it, while we keep repeating the same tired questions and obvious answers. Indeed, the society depicted in films like ‘Gattaca’ or novels like ‘Brave New World’, where everything is determined by genes, is no longer a story confined to the realm of fantasy. We must now think more carefully about the development of technology. This is not about worrying about some distant future; it is a problem concerning our immediate reality.
So, what is technological progress for? Technology has fundamentally evolved in pursuit of convenience. To make human life easier, technology has advanced relentlessly, and thanks to this, we now live in a society where many things are automated and convenient. But is this direction of technological development truly the right one? Will this technology truly make us happy? If not, in what direction should technology progress?
Happiness is not absolute but relative. While current technology provides immense convenience to humans, once we become accustomed to that convenience, we no longer derive happiness from it. That convenience soon becomes taken for granted. Indeed, when elevators first appeared, people likely felt happiness from their convenience. Yet today, it’s more common to feel irritated while waiting for an elevator. Thus, technology that pursues convenience alone can never provide us with ultimate happiness. Rather, we feel unhappiness when that convenient technology disappears. Therefore, simply pursuing convenience and greater practicality cannot be technology’s ultimate goal. What we need for our happiness is not more convenient technology. What makes us happy is our very emotions. Yet we are often so blinded by overly convenient technology that we lose touch with our emotions. Therefore, I believe that technology from now on should not be technology for convenience, but technology that helps us rediscover our emotions, which have been buried under the rapidly advancing technology of the past.
Laozi, in the Tao Te Ching, advocates pursuing nature. He teaches that we should live in accordance with nature’s flow, not force ourselves to do things. And I agree with that. Of course, the civilization humanity has built by fighting against nature has provided us with tremendous benefits. But that doesn’t mean I believe that living in a more technologically advanced era makes me happier than my ancestors who lived in less developed times. In fact, we might be losing our leisure and living more unhappy lives amidst excessive technology. The recent retro trend actually shows us longing for a time when technology was less developed but life was more leisurely and emotional. Yet, just because we yearn for that past sentiment, we can’t immediately throw away our phones and start carrying pagers again. We’ve become too accustomed to our phones. For the same reason, I don’t advocate abandoning all civilization and returning to nature just because I agree with Laozi’s concept of wu wei (non-action). Abandoning the convenient technology we take for granted and returning to inconvenience would only make us unhappy. Instead, I believe future technology should not merely pursue cutting-edge advancements, but should become technology that helps us rediscover the emotional depth we’ve lost within civilization. What we need is not a faster phone. We need a phone that can find the number of a friend we’ve forgotten in our contacts and remind us, or tell us to take a walk and look at the sky on a clear day. This is the technology that makes us happy and serves as an assistant to help us rediscover our sensibilities.
Perhaps our own attitudes are why technology has evolved solely toward convenience thus far. Certainly, this has enabled humanity to achieve tremendous civilization in a short time. But now is the time to look around at the things we’ve missed while blindly accumulating technology. Thanks to the internet, laptops, and smartphones, we can now work even on a moving bus. Yet, because of this, we no longer gaze out the window or chat with fellow passengers. We must now reclaim what we’ve lost amidst technological progress. To do this, we must seriously contemplate the direction of technological development. We must consider what the ultimate purpose of technological advancement truly is.
