I'm taking a college course in information technology including learning more about spreadsheets and how to make it work for daily use. We had to write about 3 things that we use on a regular basis. I cited address book and contact information, GPS maps on a phone and of word processing with graphic design programs as all making my work and home life easier. Then I pondered the impact of dependance on these devices... What would happen if we didn't have them?
All the ways we use as technology are so common we are all quite dependent on them. It's hard to imagine not having a phone around for the multiple tasks it offerers: call, texts, contact list, calendar and even figuring tips and simple math like discounts at stores. In some ways it's a bit sad, because figuring out numbers in our head is good for the brain as is writing letters and card and using postage.
Here are some of my thoughts about technology from another view as well as quotes along with some powerful questions to ask yourself if you are reading this.
Who would have ever thought even 10 years ago a phone could take pictures, be used as a level, a compass or to play games with? These devices have become the electronic control centers to many a persons home and business. In my mind I make a conscious effort of balance between my own control of real life and the virtual life.
What are your thoughts about being dependent on technology?
The flip side of technology can be ominous. Have you read the book "1984" by George Orwell? His prediction about technology taking over the world is a very dark picture of how computers are destructive to history and human relationships. He writes about Newspeak as the way the world communicates, thinks and behaves.
Are we headed that way ourselves?
Quotes from 1984:
"Don't you see the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the language of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible because there will be no words in which to express it"
— George Orwell (1984)
"If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."
— George Orwell (1984)
Quotes about the other side of technology:
Once upon a time we were just plain people. But that was before we began having relationships with mechanical systems. Get involved with a machine and sooner or later you are reduced to a factor. ~Ellen Goodman, "The Human Factor," The Washington Post, January 1987
This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man - if man is not enslaved by it. ~Jonas Salk
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. ~Aldous Huxley
It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome. ~T.S. Eliot, about radio
Tell me your thoughts!
References:
Technology Quotes Retrieved 3/2/2013 from : http://www.quotegarden.com/technology.html
1984 Quotes Retrieved 3/2/2013: http://www.goodreads.com/ Search 1984 George Orwell and Quotes.
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