Does the design of things impact our behaviour?

The belief that actions are determined by outside forces and not entirely human will is called determinism. (In fact, some philosophers have stated that determinism implies that a human being does not really have any control of their actions and cannot be asked to be morally responsible!)

A type of determinism that I want to talk about today is technological determinism. In this theory, it is believed that technology is changing the actions and reaction of people, especially Gen Z. This goes beyond a single generation, however. Gen Z is the future and they will raise and create the future, so the difference in their experiences are worth paying attention to.

Recently, a dad from New York gained TikTok attention when he decided to do an experiment on his wife and kids. He captioned the video “this is how you know you’re getting old”.

In the video, he asked his wife to do a hand gesture as if she was on the phone. She did the hand gesture where her pinky and thumb are out and the fist is towards the ears.

When he went to ask his two kids, they gestured as if to hold a brick towards their faces, with their hands straight.