In today’s digital age, we have adopted technology to such an extent that we are constantly in touch with technology through all aspects of our digital life. Our watches are smartwatches now, our phones can perform tasks that older full-sized computers could not and we have cars that can drive themselves. We’ve harnessed the power of science and technology, making most of the aspects of our lives easier. Technology has had a tremendous impact on how life functions today but as important as its presence is in our lives, we also need to take into account the influence technology is having on us as well.

This idea is aptly expressed in Facebook’s 2012 controversial social media experiment. In this experiment, Facebook, along with two American colleges, undertook an experiment inside Facebook that users were not aware of. Almost 700,000 users were part of an experiment where their news feeds were controlled to display only positive or negative posts. The point of this experiment was to see if the information displayed on social media has an impact on the mental state of the user and according to the results of the experiment: it did. Users who were treated to negativity on their feeds were more likely to post negative posts themselves, while users who were shown positive posts posted positive posts.

This was a four-year old experiment. Technology has developed even further now and we’re finding ways to enhance and infuse ourselves with technology even more. A new device, Thync, now allows users to manually set themselves into a certain state of mind. Thync can drive you into two states, a calm state or an energised state and it does this by sending out tiny electrical charges to your temple. The device utilises a form of neurostimulation that hotwires an area of interest in your brain and will force your brain to overcharge that segment of the brain. This is called Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS).

tDCS is a not a new development since Sally Adee from the New Scientist had written about the use of tDCS in sniper training in the US, back in 2012. In her article, she talks about how the technology is being used to accelerate learning. She experiences the effects of tDCS first-hand when she performs a military virtual training simulation course on tDCS and scores a perfect score (she hadn’t done very well in the controlled test before the experiment).

This military experiment has also been adopted by a lot of YouTube users, trying it out for themselves. It’s relatively easy to build a tDCS device since all you need to do is pass around 2 milliamps of electricity to either parts of your temple, depending on what part of the brain you want to hotwire. The materials are cheap and there are plenty of DIYs on YouTube that will guide you through the process. This resulted in tons of videos on YouTube where people tried to hotwire their own brains, some we successful while others were not. One guy even temporarily blinded himself while performing the experiment.

Using this technology, Khosla Ventures, a startup working with the $13 million they raised for Thync, has managed to create a device, not even bigger than your palm, that can alter what state of mind you are in: calm or energetic. Thync is a triangular plastic device with a longer temple component that sits on the right side of your temple and controls it via Bluetooth on your phone. You can choose from the two states and specify the intensity as well, although the device seems to work only on 80 percent of people.

A commercial product that actually controls how you feel and behave, calm or energetic. The implications of this device are truly immense. We have come to a time where things that writers wrote as science-fiction has turned into reality. We now have devices that can force us to feel a certain way, sure the device can only be put in a calm or an energised state right now, but what about when the technology develops to such a state that happiness and sadness can be controlled? Our basest desires are controlled by technology even now, subtly. But the future looks like mood control will be more brazen and controlled by our smartphones.

What about the side effects of such technology? We are dealing with an organ as complex as the brain; so how safe is it? Many experiments on tDCS have supported the idea that it is safe but since the technology is so new, there are no regulations on it. Thus, we find people experimenting on themselves and blinding themselves temporarily. It is also believed that to overcharge one part of the brain, there has to be another part that the extra ‘juice’ is pulled from. So, the technology could have negative side-effects not yet known but as of now, most experiments have been safe with little to no side-effects.

What fears me most is not that we’ve reached this age where a mood altering device has finally arrived, but rather the fact that the choice has been handed to us. Thync is being sold and we have to choose between adopting a mood controlled world or living with our base human emotions. The questions we have to ask ourselves is: how much are we willing to give up? After a few years, Thync will have evolved, the tDCS technology will have advanced and we’ll have the ability to learn faster, to calm ourselves whenever frustrated, to instantly feel happy after a heart-wrenching moment. What will we do then? Do we take the blue pill or the red pill?