Technology is ever changing. From the printing press way back when to the iPhone 5 (and iPhone 5S that will surely make you iPhone 5 users complain). Technology paves the way for us to be more informed, to be able to communicate with others around the world, and to, all in all, become more worldly, educated, and in a way, more conscious about what is going on around you. On the other hand, technology has the potential to do the exact opposite.
Browsing through Facebook and Twitter, you are bombarded with the “knowledge” that someone had a bad day, was broken-up with, or is upset that a friend (who of course will not be named) did something they deem as wrong and unforgivable. Technology has the potential to have an individual waste an entire day watching a marathon of the Kardashians and for the rest of the week will wonder why Kim called Kloe that name. For every positive that technology has, a negative is ready to over-shadow it.
Negative, positive, it’s all up to the “beholder” in the end, but for the sake of this post, let’s say that positives are in the interest of greater public knowledge about the happenings in the local, national, and international arenas; and let’s say that the negatives…are not. After the Asian tsunami’s, one could browse the internet looking for information on the science that led to it as well as how to help the poor individuals who were helplessly affected by it. At the same time, one could also have been trying to get a higher score on Angry Birds. One leads to a better tomorrow, one leads to a better sense of self pride, for the moment.
In the end, the use of technology, in this case the internet, can be incredibly productive, from looking up a politicians platforms then and now to carefully monitoring what is going on in Serbia, or incredibly fruitless, from salivating at pictures of baby North West and looking up who the cast of America’s Next Top Model Season XXXL is going to be. It’s our responsibility to ensure that we use technology in a way that will create a better life for ourselves, our children, and the world. Needless to say, however, my Fruit Ninja score will always trump yours.