To begin with the discussion, I want to start with this article called “Technology addicts” written by Dale Allen Pfeiffer.
In this article, Dale wrote about his own story that how different three generation are because of the development of technology. He watches cartoons all the time when he was little, while his father and grandfather didn’t know what a television was when they were little. He thinks that people were more living in the moment back at the time. People without technology “fulfilled not only in what they did, but in what they shared with others”. And his generation is seeking for comfort and convenience, the world right now is more artificial.
In this “artificial” world, the author tried as much as possible to interact directly with the environment. He thinks that the car and the walkman that came out in the late 1970s will cut off the people who are using them from the environment.
In Dale’s opinion, over the past century, people are only receiving all the technology the manufactory provide us without even thinking what we really want. For example, people need to have the TV on even if they are not watching it because they want to feel like they are interacting with something. It is a kind of brainwashing the new technology world gave us.
Dale says that internet gave us the opportunity to communicate with the world outside, but we are still not actually leaving our chairs to do the effort.
Comfort and convenience are the words the author describe 90% of our technology. People become very dependent about what technology can bring them. However, technology makes people forget how to do things themselves. In this society, it is very easy for people to lose their ability to survive without the technology.
Studies show that nearly 50% to 90% of the bee hives failed between September 2006 and March 2007. I was surprised to know that cell phone towers might be the reason of collapses. But even this won’t even make people think about part with their cell phone.
Dale indicated that people are so into technology right now, it is doubtful that they are going to change even if their lives are threatened by it. That’s how powerful the technology is for our generation.
In my opinion, Dale is like all of us. He knows that the technology is harmful in some way somehow. But it doesn’t change the truth that he is a technology addict too. It is very mind refreshing that how deeply we are addicted to the artificial world. Dale is quite right about the reason why we are addicted---comfort and convenience. It reminds me of the strategies of some technology companies. One of Apple’s strategies is to make the high-end technology easy to use, even for a child of 5. Can we say that the technology companies know the human being’s weakness of dependence of comfort and convenience, so that they are just developing technology to match our demand? But if we think that way, it is going to be very threatening if we follow their lead. They are for sure going to develop some new technology to make us feel more comfortable, and if we always follow up, we will loss more capabilities of doing something by ourselves. I don’t want to think this way, but is there going to be one day that the technology is so developed when we don’t have to do anything by ourselves?
Posted by Erin Qian Yu---512110
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