Ever feel you can’t live without your smartphone or anything with buttons and screens? Christopher Testa talks to Walkley award-winning journalist Antony Funnell about the relationship between society and technology.

Photo: Ian Britton

We often believe that technology will determine our future, but Funnell says technology is only a tool and that the future is ultimately decided by the action of people.

“There are a lot of people who will tell you that future is all about technology. I don’t think it is.”

“We’re living in what I call ‘the second great age of technology worship’, the first being the Victorian period, which were very very similar in lots of ways.

Funnell said the Victorian society had what he termed as ‘the first great age of technology worship’ and the modern society is going through the second one.

“There were enormous numbers of new technologies coming into society in that particular time and they transformed Victorian society in a fast way. At that time, people really started to think that with technology they could solve almost every problem.”

He said the First World War made people realise that technology could also cause problems.

“I don’t think we’re heading for a major disaster necessarily, but I think we’re at a stage at the moment where a lot of us believe the future is about technology.”

Sydneysiders queuing overnight to be the first in line for the new iPad. But is that what they really need? Photo: Beau Giles

Funnell said his new book ‘The Future and #relatednonsense’ put the forces that are influencing people and the way people are changing.

“(The book) is full of jargon with explanation. The book is there to actually debunk some of these jargons.”

In a world where technology is changing quickly, Funnell said people need to question more on the technology presented to them.

“I guess my book is a bit of a wake up call for people to say ‘look, accept the technology that is out there, choose what you want to use, don’t let somebody choose it for you, but always be sceptical about that technology on whether it will be a benefit to your existence, your work or your private life.”

Christopher Testa is a journalist for the The Wire.