Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can be thought of as a pyramid of 5 levels. According to Maslow, the needs for humans to survive must be met before higher needs can be satisfied. As you progress higher through Maslow’s hierarchy, the barriers that you must overcome increase in difficulty. Thus, the difficulty of satisfying needs of higher levels is difficult, mainly due to barriers involving personal and the environment hinders one’s progress. One’s technological experience can be applied to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Higher levels are considered long-term, as accomplishing higher level needs will take a significant amount of time.
Physiological needs are the most basic and the bottommost level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We need a lot of things to survive like food, water, shelter, as well as clothes, just to name a few. It’s difficult to survive without satisfying our basic needs. With regards to technology, we depend on smartphones, to call other people and to look things up on the internet. Without smartphones, we would be stuck in the stone age of finding directions via a physical map. Thus, this is very inconvenient and frustrating. Another example is during COVID-19 lockdowns, the learning modality switched from in person learning to online learning. This required me to use my personal laptop to continue the learning process online as learning in person is a threat to everyone’s health. All learning material was delivered online through a learning management system known as Canvas. Some students thrived in an online learning environment, while others struggled to adapt to the sudden changes in learning modalities.
Above physiological needs are safety and security needs. We want to be able to control and predict any type of outcome in our lives. Safety and security needs can be fulfilled by things like a police force protecting our community and a contract job to ensure financial security. With regards to technology, I want to increase the security of my bank account by enabling multifactor authentication in the form of a random code generator to authenticate my identity.
After fulfilling the needs of safety and security, love and belonging is the next level to be fulfilled. We humans desire attention and belongingness through things like having friends, acceptance from others, and love. For instance, I was born in a time when computing technology was abundant. I was given a computer when I was young, and I loved it. I was also introverted and depended on my personal computer to entertain me. I played video games and watched YouTube on it to subdue feelings of boredom. Thus, using my personal computer made me feel complete, especially without friends to hang out with.
The next level above needs of safety and security is self-esteem. We want esteem for ourselves that includes independence and dignity. We humans desire respect and to be seen as highly reputable in front of others. A technological example of this level would be that I was seen as a terrible coder, but I desired to become good at it someday. As a result, I researched free resources on the internet to help me attain proficiency in coding.
The pinnacle of the pyramid goes to self-actualization. Self-actualization is the realization of full potential, self-fulfillment, and peak experiences. Many people do not experience this stage of need, but at one point in our lives, we experience a glimpse of this stage. An example of this is when I first built my desktop computer from scratch without using any ESD strap is a risky undertaking. When my fully built computer started right up, I was extremely happy that my work was successful. Words cannot describe my happiness, and I hope to accomplish great things on my newly built computer.