Is Technology Really Evil?

Have you ever sat across from your African parents and tried to explain that the glow on your face isn’t “the devil’s light,” but a gateway to a new world?

If you’re in your 20s or 30s, you know the “Impact of Technology” talk. It’s a classic. In an African home, anything that dances faster than tradition are often labelled “bad.” If you hold your phone for thirty minutes, you aren’t working — you’re “wasting your life.” It’s astonishing, really, the myths we weave around the things we fear to understand. My mother used to say “unaangalia hiyo screen mpaka utatumbukia huko” which is Swahili for “You’re looking at the screen so much that you might get sucked into it”

But let’s pull back the curtain. Is technology the villain of the story, or just a powerful mirror?

I like to think of technology like a sacred forest. Some enter the forest and find medicine, ancient wisdom, and the blueprints for a better life. Others enter and get lost in the thickets, chasing shadows until the sun goes down. Technology is much like religion; it doesn’t possess a soul of its own. It reflects the soul of the person using it.

I remember when I was a captive of the scroll. I’d spend six hours a day on TikTok, drifting through videos that held no intention beyond “mindless scroll”. But even in that haze, sparks of magic would break through — a video on the alchemy of welding, or the rhythmic birth of a matchstick in a factory. It dawned on me: The tool wasn’t failing me; I was failing the tool.

Whether it’s AI or a social media feed, these things don’t breathe. They don’t have hearts. They cannot be our scapegoats for a life left unlived.

When people complain about their “For You Page,” I tell them a hard truth: That screen is a reflection of your secret curiosities. You chose the follows; you fed the algorithm. It’s high time we stopped blaming the glass and started looking at the person holding it.

Let’s stop surviving technology and start mastering it. Because when we take accountability, the “evil” glow turns into a lantern, lighting the way to our greatest potential.