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amused Just a quick little paper I wrote for a class, around 500 words long.
In today's modern world, everyone is born with a cell phone in their right hand and an iPod in their left. This generation is the most tech-savvy we have produced yet, and it shows. From young ages, we are accessing the internet, playing video games, using digital cameras and cellular phones. Our world has become one molded of silicon.
Some people say that this is a great thing, the information revolution, and it should be embraced as closely as possible. Others, however, believe that the emergence of such advanced technology and how easily information is able to be spread will be mankind's downfall. I unfortunately fall somewhere in between these two extremes.
Technology is great, and helps us with many things. Cell phones, iPods, computers, video game consoles, PDA's, all help us in our daily lives, whether it be something important or just something to pass the time... But when does this help become an unhealthy obsession, or even, a psychological need? That time is already upon us.
Young adults in this day and age seem to neglect learning basic life skills; their cell phones have a calculator, why know basic math? Their computers have a spell-checking device, why learn to spell correctly? Websites on the internet can produce maps of almost any area on earth, why memorize and know your way around an area? Video games render in three dimensions, why bother learning how to visualize three dimensional shapes? Technology seems to provide all the answers, why learn to think on their own, to think outside the box, and have an imagination, the capacity for abstract thought? Do they have any idea what they are losing?
Imagination is possibly the greatest gift that the human mind has received, and we're amputating it. Cutting it out like we would a festering piece of flesh, replacing it with a prosthetic. Video games. Movies. Young children don't have a need to think of things on their own, to make up games to play, for they have games already: video games. Made by another, someone with imagination. And those people are getting to be in short supply.
The majority of the population depends on someone, or something to provide organization and guidance. When such beings are cut off from their technology, their lives, they resemble chickens with their heads cut off, minds running in circles, trying to remember the most trivial of calculations, the simplest directions, the most basic of spellings.
Imagine if something catastrophic happened, and all technology in the world just suddenly stopped working. What would you do? How would you keep track of your life? Could you survive without your technological prosthetics of the mind?
Try this. Take a day without using a cell phone, a computer, an iPod, or even a calculator. Then try for two days. And then three. See how many days you can go before you don't even have an urge to resort to technological solutions. Free yourself from your dependence, and you will survive.
--Timothy Roberts, The Shoreline
Deleted comment
October 8 2007, 04:58:29 UTC 4 years ago
October 8 2007, 01:07:13 UTC 4 years ago
October 8 2007, 04:59:44 UTC 4 years ago
October 8 2007, 18:38:23 UTC 4 years ago
Don't Let them amputate your motivation, as well.
Tim,Some of the negative comments are right, but meaningless. Most are wrong and meaningless. Don't let those impostors fool you.
Yeah, "cliched simile." Yeah, it was. So? I guess WinTerFox missed the point where you mention the "quick little paper" part. I guess WTF also thinks form trumps style. That's for people who prefer cliched thinking to cliched simile, I guess.
Notice that the critic isn't aware that there are more ways to view three-dimensional space than one. Many people assume that the default way they see ("uh, dumb considering that you see three-dimensional objects every day) is the only way. Assuming the default, or everyday method of anything is the only, or best method, is a classic sign of being closed-minded, and possibly learning-disabled.
Damn, I didn't want this to be a rant about WTF's ignorance, but he/she/it is begging for it.
Right from the beginning - "Paragraphs please." How about full sentences, please? How about correct use of the comma, which was omitted before the word "please," please? Can't write a two-freakin'-word sentence without at least two grammar mistakes?
OK, that's enough. I'm not a grammar expert, and neither is WTF. Your essay wasn't about grammar, either.
Tim, where do you find these people?
Your thoughts may have been expressed before, and probably better. So? So have all of the comments (including this one). But they show you are actually thinking, and on to something. That can lead to more and better and possibly more original thoughts. That needs encouragement, not petty critiques.
Not every essay has to be Plato's "Republic." I'm glad I read yours, because it caused me to to think about your statement that, "... technology seems to have all the answers...." That's true. It sometimes seems so. I love that word, "seems". It's a warning flag. From that same statement, I was caused to consider that however many answers technology has, or seems to have, it seldom comes up with any meaningful questions, does it? That may be the key to why I, others, and maybe you, too, have suspicions about our present level of (mis?)use of technology.
There were some other, more thoughtful, comments by psychox, which I'd like to respond to. He said that we may be stronger together than alone. It may be true, but it is not a good argument for what is right. It's not necessarily wrong, either, just not compelling. It was the argument for great leaders, but it was the exact argument Hitler made, too, as did all people who wanted to lead, for right or for wrong. Nobody really has to toe anyone else's line.
He's right that, "just because the species survives a disaster, it doesn't mean you will." But it's just as true that, "just because an individual didn't, it doesn't mean you wont."
And then there's the issue of survival. As an individual? As a society? The who is important. So is the why. I submit that societies who are responsible for stunting mental and emotional grow should not survive. Should the Soviet society (I don't mean the individuals, I mean the society) have survived? Should the Third Reich have survived? If they did, how many more valuable societies would have had to be "amputated?"
Also, Ghandi and Lincoln (for example) didn't "survive." Is there some case there for them not to have done what they did? I think not. People for whom "survival" is the greatest goal, are back on default. They're not even alive to begin with. On a positive note, Nelson Mandela, and lots of other people have survived. Martyrdom is not a necessity, although petty ridicule in the guise of "helpful criticism" (see WTF) generally is.
I really enjoyed your essay. We don't have to be right do we? We just have to be on the right track, or at least looking for it. I'd love to see some more posts by you on subjects like this.
Keep on bloggin,'
Brian (a.k.a. Professor Homunculus at The MathMojo Chronicles
October 8 2007, 21:50:56 UTC 4 years ago
Re: Don't Let them amputate your motivation, as well.
Thanks for the support =]And it's an editorial for my school's newspaper that I had to write up in the hour before it needed to be turned in xD
So, all of you who are bashing on my lack of proper paragraphs, they're short to begin with, and Logjam(the program I use to post) doesn't carry over tabs too well.
October 10 2007, 00:38:34 UTC 4 years ago
Re: Don't Let them amputate your motivation, as well.
Alright, so a few people didn't immediately fall in love with your editorial. They respond with critiques and questions even and you don't bother responding but the first person to tell you that they like it and you respond immediately.If you wrote this an hour before it was due, you obviously did not put a lot of thought or effort into it so I'm wondering why you bothered posting it at all? This is a community for writers who want to receive critiques on their works, not only praise. If you didn't like what
And as for the petty attempt to insult
October 10 2007, 00:51:08 UTC 4 years ago
Re: Don't Let them amputate your motivation, as well.
After I posted my editorial, I didn't even check this page until my girlfriend saw it and told me people commented on it >>So of course I respond to the positive one, as my comment for this discussion.
I know what this community is for, and I just wanted some suggestions on the writing, not as to the legibility of the paper =]
But thanks for the input anyway, I'm working on rewriting it.