Tuesday, September 28, 2010
R.I.P.
Here's one to get you started. A lot of early American authors wrote about the changes they saw happening in the new republic, the growing pains associated with the building of a nation. Irving is famous for this. Both "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Devil and Tom Walker" reflect a concern over the general direction of the country. It seems like Irving was worried that some quality of life was slowly diminishing. I'm wondering how applicable that is to our society today. RVW seems to show that as society moves ahead quickly, some human quality is left behind -- and some might argue that this is the general pattern of modernity. Every advancement is accompanied by some kind of loss, and what's lost usually involves a quality of life issue. If we look at this in a modern context, we might consider any one of a number of technological advancements that have "improved" society. Take, for instance, cell phones. Most would agree that they have improved certain aspects of daily living in a very noticeable way. But at what price? What is lost? Do you feel like the advantages of cell phones (or any other technological advancement... television, computers, internet) outweigh any collateral damage they might do? Feel free to rant and rave, shoot from the hip, tell stories, speculate wildly, or otherwise sort out your thoughts in writing.
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Despite the convinces they provide everyone every single day, I think that things like cell phones and computers are definitely degrading society, especially with things like Facebook and twitter. Does everyone you have ever known really need to know what you're doing every single day? As the generation that is growing up with the internet, we are the most affected by it. Can anyone support my argument?
ReplyDeleteTechnological advances like cell phones and computers have taken a toll on modern day society. They were created for specific purposes like communication and work. However, in today’s society these objects purposes have been greatly abused and have become more for entertainment that for there overall purposes. For example, cell phones used to just be a convenient way of calling people. Now cell phones are more than that; People can play games, watch movies, text, take photos, surf the Internet, ect. At first all these things seem great, but when I personally reflect on them it seems as though our society has begun to lack qualities it once had.
ReplyDeleteThe human race has a natural tendency to improve and modernize, there is no stopping that. Humans will always look for new ways to improve communication and to make life easier. I do believe that technology has taken over the world that we now know today.You can communicate with someone with the touch of a button and document important events in less than a second. But is all this innovation really in our best interest? there are now also toxic gases being released into the atmosphere, and dangerous mass-weapons being built. I feel there is no going back to the days without these technologies but perhaps we can find a way to make them less dangerous to our world
ReplyDeleteTechnology has definitely moved the human race forward. But it's almost as if we have taken one step forward and two steps back. Although technology like cell phones, computers, televisions, and ipods are incredibly convenient, it has become just that- a convenience. These tools allow life to work more "smoothly" so we, the users, don't have to do as much work. I think that although we are constantly updating our technology, at one point or another it starts to run our lives. People existed and lived perfectly well without all of the technology, so why need it now? I feel the privilege of having access to these devices has been abused and is now used for entertainment, as opposed to work or emergencies. I feel that the world has made life convenient with all of the technology, but made us dependent on machines to almost run our lives.
ReplyDeleteWhen used correctly, technology is a very important part of the society we live in. The internet is the most important part of technology today because we have every single peice of information we need to know at the tips of our fingers, as well as the information we don't need to know. Even though some may argue that sites like facebook and twitter are useless and stupid, the benefits of the internet strongly outwiegh the drawbacks. However, with other devices like cellphones, social skills can be lost or hindered by the use of texting aand other forms of messaging.In regular social situations, you can't wait five minutes befroe you decide how to respond to what somebody has said.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is advancing more and more everyday. I agree with Jenna that we are abusing technologies such as cell phones, the internet, facebook, ipods and every other gadget we own. When I went to Costa Rica for 6 weeks I had no phone, no ipod, no facebook no way to contact with anyone. I would reach into my pocket for my phone even though I knew it wasn’t there. Walking 2 miles to an internet shack to check my email and talk to my parents was also a very interesting experience. It’s strange to me how attached to phones and how addicted people are to facebook. I don’t believe this is healthy at all, everything should be used in moderation (Oh, Ben Franklin said that what a coincidence). There is no doubt technology is going to advance into things we could never imagine. I hope that these technologies have a benefit for our society and are used for the better. People should become more aware to the impact technology has had on them and next time before going on facebook or playing computer games they acknowledge the other options in life.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the advancement in technology is generally a good thing. We live in a modernizing world, and that is a fact. Yes, we do loose some basic principals and other things from the past but in my opinion they are replaced by good things as well. I do however also believe that is good to get away from the advances in technology for awhile. For example this year I'm going to the Philippines and we are not allowed to bring our phones. I am excited to see how it goes and to be somewhat disconnected from the modern world and be reminded what life is like without the technological advances that most of us take for granted.
ReplyDeleteOkay. So we are talking about how technological advances have also created some cultural loss. Basically I believe that technology diminishes certain experiences within society but does not lead to an absence is social skills. Some think that people (us) that grow up in this new tech world will lose social skills because of the ease of communication through technology. I think that this is a bit of jealousy from the older generation, that we have the ability to use these new tools of communication. I think that these new tools eg. facebook, cell phones, etc. don't take anything away from face to face interaction, they simply give us an ability to communicate when we cannot do so face to face.
ReplyDeleteI do believe however, that some experiences are lost in the continuous advancement of technology. The ability to reach anything or anyone through the internet and cell phones always leaves us something to do. The constancy of activity leaves us no time to simply do nothing. This takes us away from doing the activities that the last generation enjoyed while they were simply hanging out; things like listening to records, sitting down and thinking, or reading perhaps.
I love my cell phone and firmly believe it is one of the greatest inventions of all time. I also like Facebook, email, and television. Is this a bad thing? Most certainly not! As humans, we have the God given ability to be better than other animals and species on the planet, and we do so with technology. I personally doubt that I would win a battle against a tiger unless I had technology on my side. With technology, I would destroy that tiger. Back to what I was saying, we, as humans, are constantly evolving in the sense of adapting to new technology. As a younger human being, I am exposed to so many new technological advancements and I try to understand and utilize as many of the advancements as I can. For example, younger human beings are more experimental in their quest to discovering themselves and their journey to adulthood. Because of that very reason, younger humans usually use Facebook and other hip and trendy social networking accessories as a way of discovering themselves. Older human beings, 40 and up, tend to become complacent with their knowledge of society and technology and therefore view change with a negative spin. The reason why I chose 40 and up is because it's scientifically proven that the human brain slows down after turning 40 years old and slowly degrades to mush, just saying. But also, I rarely find elderly people buying phones with the intention of using them for anything besides calling people. It is as though older humans of the previous generation turn off the switch that allows them to absorb new technology. This makes older humans content with past technology and causes them to become subconscious luddites and scorn newer technology. Therefore, there might be a correlation between older humans' pessimism towards technology and the brain slowing down.
ReplyDeleteTo everyone who commented above saying how technology changes society from how it was, how do you know what society was back then? Secondly, stop speaking with a nostalgic attitude when you never even experienced ye olden day technology.