Technology: An Epic Fail

Technology: An Epic Fail

When technology is mentioned, minds tend to automatically think towards the positive. How it is used every day, the role it has played in progressing us as a people and how it makes life a little easier, every single day. While these are all true, the negatives also need to be considered on a regular basis. Reliance on technology is not a good thing. When one is fully reliant on something, they are lost without it. Like any other addiction, if control is not gotten over it, it will consume our entire beings.

Thinking of technology as a savior is normal, but the focus should be on what would be done without this Godsend. Technology should be a tool, not a crutch. No doubt about it, without the advances made in recent decades, lives would be much harder. Forget about not being able to brew a pot of coffee in the morning or having to write papers by hand rather than being able to type them up. How about when the country's power grid goes out and the entire country is in the dark? How will we turn on the a/c in the summer or get directions to the nearest mall? How will the military know of impending attacks with no radar system? Instead of using computers to teach everything, children should be taught to do things the hard way, then progress to the easier; start with the basic and develop to the more complex. When the power grid goes out, what will Wall Street do? More likely than not, stock brokers cannot tabulate the numbers and figures they deal with every day on paper and pencil. These are only a few of the daily functions that would be affected. With how reliant we are on technology, the affect it would have on every day existence would be astronomical.

Technological advances have definitely made communication easier; easier yes, safer no. No doubt about it, cell phones are a blessing. They help us make appointments, they make it possible to stay in touch and can even serve as a second alarm clock, for those who love to hit the snooze button until it will not go off anymore. One thing they do not bode well for is driving. "A study of dangerous driver behavior released in January 2007 by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. found that of 1,200 surveyed drivers, 73 percent talk on cell phones while driving." (Edgar Snyder & Associates, 2002-2012) While this figure is not surprising, it is a shame. Especially with the number of deaths it causes; a number that unfortunately, rises every year.

Let us try to forget for a moment how primitive life would be inept of computers and cell phones and bring to attention how this dependence and necessity has affected our health. The obesity rate in this country has skyrocketed over the past 20 years, in both adults and children alike. "20 years ago no state had obesity levels above 15% (today 38 states have obesity levels over 25%)". (Fitness, 2011) If this figure (no pun intended) is not enough to make