Attached to Technology

Summary

In the article, Attached to Technology and Paying a Price, by Matt Richtels, he starts out describing what technology has done to the Cambell family and how its running their lives. He then goes into explaining the working of our brain and how its effected how we think and process information. It views both sides but leans on how technology might not be so good for us as we use it.

Reflection

After reading this I came even more to realize that its not the substance but the user. The family depicted here can in no way be assumed to be a normal picture of what technology does to you. This in my interpretation is like saying alcohol is bad for you and then showing you a family of alcoholics. This view distorts the real picture, in which moderation is the key. In my example lets say alcohol isn't generally a bad substance if used in moderation, it helps interactions around people, makes them more social, and is a fun activity, in moderation. Technology can be looked at the same way. It does very much the same things as a drug and is even compared to one in the article, but in moderation, as most people use it, its not that bad of a thing. The reason its becoming a problem is because no one sees it as that. If we could look at it from an addiction standpoint it changes a lot. The reason kids are so hooked on technology now is because of their parents using it. Since the parent shows no control the child can't be assumed to learn any control. Using my prior example, if your raised in a family of alcoholics and given alcohol what to stop you from abusing it, if everyone, not even just your family, is just as hooked on it as you.

Connection to Carr

The article connects directly to Carr in the belief that technology is somehow rewiring our brains. In both articles they writer notices that attentions spans have decreased among heavy technology users as well as other cognitive abilities. They also both share the idea that our brain is open to change even past adolescence, a theory many doctors now hold true. In both they believe the internet is making us less focused on the world around us. They believe it absorbs us and takes us away, so we neglect the things we have to do as humans. We forget meeting and put off other things because technology as such a grip on our minds. They would both probably agree that we are on a path to become thoughtless, emotionless beings controlled by the circuitry that makes up computers. That we are doomed to be robots, constantly wired in, unless something is done.