Technology

I really do not know what people did before technology.  I have to write a paper for my business law class about a case that relates to a topic we have studied over the past three months.  So, I played eenie meenie miniee mo and picked a chapter out of the textbook then picked a topic in that textbook.  I then went to google.com and typed in the topic "Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Cases 2011" and an abundance of sources came up.  How easy was that?  All within 3 minutes I picked a topic that I would write about.  What was it like when my parents were going to school and you actually had to do "research" that entailed going to the library and countless hours of reading through books.  For them, back in the day, it was probably fine.  They probably thought "Wow! The library is great!  All these phenomenal resources in books that are in one place and all I need to do is spending three hours reading through them." What a life we have when now 3 hours of research is reduced to 3 minutes of research.  And then I can start typing in Microsoft Word and ramble on for a few minutes until I go back and edit whatever I just wrote.  No need to rewrite anything, just edit it.  We are SPOILED with all this information at the tips of our fingers.  I can google anything I want and get a response.  Anything.  I can google a recipe, a person, a song, an event, and I will always be rewarded with an abundance of links that relate to whatever I searched.  And, if google takes more than 2 seconds to retrieve data I will get angry, which is ridiculous don't you think?

Cell phones.  I don't even understand how land line telephones work, let alone cell phones.  Texting is a miracle, and I bet that if someone told you 30 years ago that you would one day be able to send an instant "text" to someone saying whatever you wanted people would say NO WAY!  And not even just texting! I can take a picture right here of something in Delaware and text it to someone back home in New York and they will receive it all in the matter of maybe a minute.

I am starting to agree, however, with the many accusations that technology is actually hindering our ability to grow as human beings.  I feel that since I grew up on a "technology high" I can not even begin to imagine not having it.  I would go through some serious withdrawals.  However, I think I am going to try to limit my social interaction via the internet and cell phones.  I find that recently email, facebook, and texting are my primary forms of communication because they are simple.  I rarely call someone on the telephone because why call when you can text?  Here's why you should call:  It's more personal.  Here's why you should get out of the house and knock on your friend's door instead of calling them: It's more personal. If we are already a generation with limited face to face communication with other individuals I fear what the next generation is going to be like.  Is it possible that the next generation's individuals will be even more removed from other individuals?

So I think that we as a society need to snap out of this technology high.  We need to turn off our cell phones and computers.  We need to take the time to interact with other people on a more personal level.  If we limit our reliance and dependence on technology I feel that our society will really thrive as a whole in terms of relationships.  Life is about the relationships you have with other people, and technology really lessens the quality of these relationships.

So I challenge you to try to spend one day without technology.  And if you think that you would not survive, then you are proving my point that our reliance on it is ridiculous.