What an Amazonian tribe teaches us about technology.
The Kanamari tribe’s rapid digital immersion shows how tech disrupts culture and connection. Their choice to limit access reminds us that in an always-on world, restraint is a radical act.
KEY POINTS
- The digital flood arrived fast—disrupting identity, rituals, and ways of knowing.
- The Kanamari’s digital shock reveals how screens quietly reshape all our lives.
- Turning off tech is wisdom, not rejection—it protects presence, rituals, and values.
Technology is never neutral. It can distort our values just as easily as it can amplify our intentions.
Some of my most treasured childhood memories are of visiting a place that no longer exists: my grandmother’s village in rural Bangladesh as it was 45 years ago. This was a place without electricity, internet, or machines. It was a place where time moved at the speed of breath, and connection was felt, not downloaded. It is gone now, changed beyond recognition by the drumbeat of progress that has pulled it into the global present.
I was reminded of what had been lost on Sunday night, when CNN broadcast the story of the Kanamari tribe, an indigenous community in the Brazilian rainforest who were suddenly catapulted into the digital age by the arrival of a Starlink-based internet connection.
The memory stayed with me as I watched the Kanamari tap into their first satellite signal and scroll through WhatsApp, Facebook, and Kwai, a Chinese short-video app similar to TikTok. But it wasn’t just joyful dances or wildlife clips that streamed into the village. With no filters or digital literacy infrastructure in place, the flood included manipulative AI-generated videos, misinformation, and explicit content, including pornographic material. What unfolded was not simply a story about internet access. It was a parable for the age we all live in.
From Sacred Ritual to Viral Feed
Until the arrival of Starlink, the Kanamari had lived entirely offline. Then, almost overnight, they were wired into the global digital stream. The internet gave them powerful tools: the ability to report illegal deforestation, connect with distant relatives, and access vast stores of information.
But it all came too fast.
There’s an old saying: when a frog is dropped into boiling water, it jumps out immediately. But if the water is heated slowly, the frog doesn’t notice until it’s too late. The Kanamari were the frog dropped into boiling water, fully immersed in modern tech all at once. The rest of us? We’ve been slowly simmering in it for decades.
The story that unfolded on the screen was predictable in many ways. Connectivity brought newfound access to medical guidance, enabling villagers to search for symptoms, learn how to apply basic healthcare principles, and even attempt self-diagnosis where formal care was absent.
But this access to the wider world was a double-edged sword. The very signal that the community could use to report illegal deforestation also had the potential to attract those responsible for the crime. Satellite-linked phones and GPS data can enable poachers, illegal loggers, and land grabbers to coordinate more efficiently. Worse, the same infrastructure can be exploited by organized criminal networks engaged in cocaine farming, narcotics trafficking, and land conversion for illicit crops.
[Source Photo: Shutterstock]
Original article @ Psychology Today.
