Investigation of prosthetics and cyborgization phenomenon
Hello!
My name is Liza and I am a student taking up Sociology. I am currently doing a study that investigates the phenomenon of prosthetics and cyborgization.
Now I’m seeking people who have prosthetics and implant experience in their life. I want to learn more about it. If you have the same experience, answer to my questions, please. And before it, tell me shortly about your situation of prosthetics.
My questions are as follows:
How and why did you decide on prosthetics/implants?
How did your life change after getting prosthetics/implants?
Please describe your day-to-day life as someone with prosthetics/implants? What are your habits and routines? Did these change after your prosthetics/implants? How so?
What have been made possible by your prostethics/implants? Were limitations also created? If so, what what are they?
What are the typical reactions of people (such as family, friends, strangers) after seeing your prosthetics/implants?
Did you feel feel different after your prostethics/implants?
Did your relation with yourself or with other people change? If so, how did it change?
Should people voluntarily get prostethics/implants? (prosthetics without medical necessity; example: the replacement of health organs, implantation of chips to augment capabilities)
I will be so grateful for your answers! I really need it for my science interests and investigation!
P.S. to contact also: [email protected]
Comments
Hi Liza. To answer your questions - from my perspective anyway:
Several reasons:
Implants:
I keep losing my keys and access badges to the various places I patronize that use them, and I hate wearing watches, bracelets or jewelry (that I would lose also, no doubt). My NFC / RFID implants stay with me at all time, and they're there when I need them.
My NFC implant opens my website on cellphones that scan it. It's smarter to ask people to scan my hand than give out business cards made out of dead trees that invariably end up in the trash for nothing.
I like to goof around with technological things that have a real-life purpose.
Prosthetics:
I have a knee prosthesis, but I didn't exactly choose to get it. Still, one could call it an augmentation, considering that the alternative was an above-knee amputation when I got it.
It didn't. Or rather, it got better because I never have to look for my keys everywhere or run back home to fetch the badge to my workplace and arrive late at work anymore. Also, I never have to enter a password to any of the computers I use anymore.
My habits are surely as boring and as mundane as everybody else's, minus the drudgery of keys, badges and passwords, as explained above. I'm not sure they're really worth describing.
No limitations. Rice-grain-sized chips under the skin where they don't really get in the way of anything are quickly forgotten and nothing to write home about. Chipped pets don't behave any different from unchipped ones, and it's the same with people. In any case, if I ever feel they get in the way, become a nuisance or a threat for any reason, they're not as permanently set-in as you'd think, and probably quite easy to remove.
They can't see them unless I tell them about them, or unless they see me using them. And usually I don't even bring up the subject unless I have to. The reactions range from "pretty cool" to "you're weird: I'd never punch a hole in my skin just to avoid using a badge". We don't have religious crazies like in the US in my European neck of the woods, so I've yet to meet someone spewing out nonsense about the mark of the beast or something.
I did feel "repaired" - and quite thankful for it - after I got my knee replaced. I still have that feeling every once in a while - a strange sensation of being more complete than nature alone would have given me the right to be, and an intimate connection to a humanity whose technological achievements allow me to live a normal life when I normally shouldn't.
With the implants: there's an entire ecosystem of devices out there (access card readers, other people's cellphones...) that I never really paid much attention to before, that normally talk to their "cousins" on loan to their human bearers - the various cards, badges and tags people carry around. I can now interface with these devices directly. Well, it's still a foreign object talking to the devices, but the foreign object is inside me. As a result, I feel as if I've become half part of that ecosystem - silently and automatically "adopted" by that particular family, if that makes any sense.
I have a renewed respect for my cat, as he's 20 times smaller than I am, but got an implant needle through his skin as large as mine without so much as a squeak :)
Sure, if they want to and they're fully aware of the risks and the consequences. It's their bodies after all, they should be able to do what they want with it. Good luck finding medical professional willing to carry out unnecessary body modifications though - which, quite frankly, would be tons better than having things done by piercers and other amateur surgeons in my humble opinion. I know because, as nice, helpful and well-intentioned as my piercer is, when she injected my first implant, she busted a vein and I ended up with a massive subcutaneous hemorrhage for several days that went half-way up my arm. That would not have happened with a medical doctor, or even a vet, had one accepted to inject me.
Good luck with your studies :)
Hello! So thankful for you answers. You make a great contribution to my research.