As Erika commented about in her blog, I feel that while technology has its many advantages in our culture and lives today, it is also contributing to a loss of basic skills and knowledge. With the computer and calculator there to do everything for us, what are we really in need to know how to do on our own. If we have all these tools that will do things for us, is it necessary for us to be able to do them on our own?
I believe that it is essential that we have these skills. If we allow technology to take over and perform basic skills for us, in a way we will eventually replace ourselves with something else. This idea says that, in a way, we are replaceable; we are not unique. This is very upsetting to me.
Halyes comments in the article “The Seductions of Cyberspace” that the body will become disposable. Once we have ‘downloaded’ all of our thoughts and ideas into a computer, are we needed anymore? This emphasizes that individuals are not important and can all be easily replaced with an artificial intelligence. When I think of the people in my life that I really love, I could never replace them with technology. While we can duplicate human ideas and facts, can we really say that individuals are not important anymore?
In the article “The Edge of Chaos”, it says “The passing of the old system...is not only sad but tragic”. Our old system of cognitive thinking and reading and learning and interacting with our environment is slowly falling away. As the article states, it “looks like the end of the world”. In a way I would agree, I see it as the end of the world as we know it. But is this new world we are approaching going to be better or more rewarding than the world we are leaving behind? I do not think so.
After reading the stack of articles assigned for Tuesday’s class, I was relieved to find that many of the authors agreed with me and the detrimental affects that technology can have on individuals as well as society as a whole. While there are clear advantages to technology, I also see several harmful affects.
As a child I remember playing outside with the neighborhood kids for hours on end each summer day, being forced to come inside when my mom yelled for me to come to the dinner table or I would be sent to me room. Today, I see a reversal. I see children sitting in front of their computer screens, engaged in a ‘virtual’ world, away from reality. I see parents trying to peal their children away from computer screens, trying to get them to go outside and enjoy ‘reality’. This is so sad to me. I truly believe that you must interact with your real world in order to develop into an intelligent, social being. Computers are slowly changing the way we see and interact with our worlds and I don’t like it.
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1 comment:
I totally agree with you. I do remember playing outside when I was little, but when I started become older, in my teens I started to become one of those who needed to be peeled from the tv or computer screen. We as humans need interaction. I do remember one media source had a story on a video game because it peeled the player away from their family and into a whole other world and these so called players eventually became divorced and their life as they knew it fell.
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