Matt Richtell's article Attached to Computers and Paying the Price was largely about the Campbell family. Using this family as a prime example Richtel explains the negative effects computers are having on us. Mr. Campbell, the family's father, is a computer programmer that is defined as having a slightly severe techology addiction. According to family members he can never stay off his computer and is constantly checking his e-mail. One of the main points driven home is that he almost overlooked a 1.3 million dollar deal for several days because he just skimmed through his e-mail. The rest of the family is experiencing similar problems. The son in the family got a C in school for the first time because of the internet distracting him, the daughter of the family is fairly active, however once she begins browsing on her computer she can't be interrupted by the goings on in the rest of the 'real world.' Even Mrs. Campbell says she's becoming more and more intertwined with technology. If you can take anything from this article it'd be that the internet and the new wave of technology is changing us and making us less capable of focus.
My personal response to this article is agreement. Richtell tells a tale of an everyday family that's getting addicted to technology. It's starting to interfere with their work and it's interfering with family time. The author of the article doesn't come out and say that "technology is bad," but he illustrates the point that it most certainly is changing us, and not for the better. It's a rude awakening for people when they realize how addicted almost everyone is becoming to technology. Personally, I'm not a technological person. I use a computer pretty much just to do my homework and I'm almost never on Facebook, though I do have one because my friends made me one. It's apparent that people are becoming addicted to facebook, social networking, and the internet as a whole. Instead of spending quality time with family, friends, or learning new skills people instead bumble around on the internet doing absolutely nothing. It's obvious people need to learn technology responsibly instead of just using it willy nilly. Maybe people should learn to balance their lives out.
I plan on writing my article about one of Carr's statements about how technology has progressed. He states how Socrates thought the written word would take away from true human wisdom and people would be less capable of remembering things on their own. Then, he talks about how Hieronimo Squarciafico thought Guttenberg's printing press would lead to making people less studious. I plan to take that points and beg the question "Where does technological advance end?" Is the internet the end all of pure human experience or is it just another step in the direction of conveniance. When will we completely sell the great feeling of accomplishment of finding knowledge instead of just 'Googling' it. When do people begin to shallow out from society when instead of going to a friend, family member, or respected member of society and turn to their monitor instead. I plan on using Richtell's article to show the way that people have already begun changing. The internet is a recent invention and yet it's changed us more thoroughly than any invention in the history of man. If this is just a small glimpse of how the internet can change us than how different will society be in 20 years? 50 years? How different will society be when mankind invents something more advanced than the internet?
Eric- I so agree about how people are becoming addicted to technology and that they do need to start learning how to use it responsibly. Soon people are going to become so dependent on it that they wouldn't know how to interact with others without it. Then what? Society as we know it will surely deteriorate and our everyday lives will become almost robotic.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting for me to see that people are aware of how much technology has intruded into our daily lives. I thought that our current amount of use was pretty much accepted, with no one seeing anything wrong with it. Maybe though this period of time and in the near future will be the peak of use, or at least abuse, and more and more people will curtail their use as they recognize its negative effects.
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