In overall opinion, I believe most people would agree that technology is indeed a blessing. When we compare our society to times past, there is an obvious difference in efficiency, communication, and readily available information. No matter how much of a blessing technology is, as a society we are becoming far too dependent on it.
Case and point: calculators. I am going to use an anonymous example to demonstrate. I am going to call her Jessica.
Me: "Jessica, do you know the square root of 1?"
Jessica: "Is it like point 653 (.653)?"
Me: "Do you know what the square root of 1 means?"
Jessica: "What times itself equals 1?"
Me: What times 1 equals 1?"
Jessica: "I don't know!"
Me: "Do you have a calculator?"
Jessica: "Yes."
Me: Find the square root of 1."
And she did. It was no problem. Regardless, she was angry that I made her feel stupid. And she was even more upset when I asked her if I could use this in my story.
In this example technology is teaching people to be lazy. Instead of knowing to find the answer to a function, and a fairly simple function at that, she needed a calculator.
Other examples you ask? How about almost any modern communications that require electricity? Cell phones, computers, and even our national defence system all relies on electricity. Yes there are power generators that would hold us for a while if something major were to happen, but there is no way it could hold permanently.
Try to imagine a worldwide power outage. Not for one day, but for one month, or hell maybe even permanently. Could modern people really survive? No refrigerators, no telephones, and eventually no cars (as we rely on gas and electricity). Where would we be? It's difficult to imagine how much more difficult it would be to live. Imagine people who need technology for health reasons, they no longer have what is required for them to live.
How about the massive shock wave of panic that would whip through the world. No one would have any idea what happened seeing as there is no real news any more.
We as a society need to do two things; teach ourselves to survive without modern technology in case the worse could happen and prepare ourselves for the day when electricity is no longer available, because it isn't a matter of "if" a worldwide power outage were to occur, but when it will happen. And, in this modern age with our complete and utter reliance on technology, we as a civilization would be lost.
38 Comments - Add comment