How Technology Shaped Our Bodies
Think humans have stopped evolving? Not since 2.6 million years ago when we started using stones.
Our brains are getting smaller. Our attention patterns are changing. And yet that smartphone in your hand shares a relationship with our ancestors of around 2.6 million years ago who crafted the first stone tools. That’s about when our brains began to rewire and physical changes started to happen. And if you think we’re done evolving with technology, we’re not.
Those very early tools that lead to a rewiring of our brains enabled us to develop the technology of language, then writing, cave painting and so on. Which enabled us to form into groups and clans, then tribes, then societies and nations. Culture became our sort of operating system, HumanOS, to make this all happen.
The physiological changes that first happened were the development of fine motor controls of our hands, our thumbs became more pronounced, changing the very structure of our hands. Our jaws became weaker as we used tools to process our food. Although we probably all chewed rather loudly.
This all reorganised our brain too. Making tools became more complex as we needed sequential planning. This expanded our prefrontal cortex. The development of the Broca’s area initially helped with our hand movements and was later co-opted for language development.
Once we figure out how to cut a nice t-bone steak out of a mastodon and that cooking it on a fire with a tool we made was super tasty, our digestive track began to shrink too. This also meant less tearing dinner apart with our teeth, so they too shrank. This too changed our gut microbiome, which, interestingly, we’re only really figuring out a couple million years later.
When we came up with the clever idea of planting food so we could do other things, like build empires and write poetry and live in the same place year round, our skeletons began to change too. We grew taller and were less hunched over, although we did develop more spinal curvature. We developed the ability to digest milk, then someone came up with the brilliant idea of ice cream.
With the rise of the industrial revolution, our bodies changed yet again. Our height continued to grow upwards and we changed our circadian rhythms thanks to artificial light. We also had more time on our hands and we got drunk a lot more at the local pub.
How Technology Is Changing Our Bodies Today
Earlier I wrote that our brains are getting smaller. They are. Our modern brains are about 13% smaller than our ancestors from around 100,000 years ago. Scientists aren’t entirely sure why. There are several theories, including the use of technology or climate change.
Some medical scientists are finding changes to our spines at the neck and lower lumbar area due to our use of smartphones. Some call it text neck or tech neck. Does that mean our spines are evolving with new generations? We don’t know yet. If Augmented Reality (AR) glasses replace our smartphones, probably not. But then what does that do to our eyes? Myopia is already more prevalent across much of the world.
There’s also “smartphone pinkie” where your pinkie finger deforms through smartphone use. Except that one is total bunk and doesn’t happen. Your pinkie is safe.
Some scientists are suggesting that because of various technologies, our bodies are actually evolving 100 times faster in the past 10,000 years! Much too of what scientists are finding is that some of the biggest changes are at a molecular level.
As we further develop genetic engineering tools, we may well enter an age where we can manipulate our physiology and neurology in incredible new ways. Long a trope of science fiction, but also legitimate science.
It is yet another way of seeing just how deeply intertwined humans are with technology. Good and bad. We are able to process information much faster than ever before, our language is evolving, our decision making processes too with so much information. Even sensory processing due to haptics in modern touch screen devices.
In many ways, this is quite an exciting time to be alive. All we can say is that we are indeed, still evolving.