After reading NPR's article, "It's Not You, It's Me: Breaking Up With Technology" I felt an overwhelming desire to reach for my new Wii (and maybe my DS, and my laptop, and my tivo...) and hold it tight. How could I ever get tired of my beloved Wii? How could I ever have technology fatigue from something so truly fantastic and positive for my health?
But then reality came crashing down and I saw the error of my ways.
One day I will get tired of my Wii, just like I got tired of my Nintendo or of my old cell phone. One day something even more exciting will come out and my desire for its "newness" will override my common sense. This is what happens with technology.
Even as I write this though, I am wondering if this tendency to go through new technology so quickly is not inching its way into other aspects of our lives. Do we go through people so quickly and flippantly? Using the high divorce rates over the last ten years, I could argue, yes, we do. Do we go through morals so quickly? Not so long ago helping out our fellow man was considered normal and necessary. But, just this morning my students told me how they are perfectly willing to accept community service hours for buying ice cream, not actually performing a service to assist others.
Now, I know many of you don't want to admit how quickly we love something and then forget about it. I don't want to admit it. But, the time has come for us to pay attention to how we approach life. Little decisions like buying a new cell phone every year can begin to impact how you view other aspects of your life. If we forget to see the importance of how to make things last (material, emotional, ideological) we will become a society of waste at all levels - more so than we already are.
12 comments:
Lil TSTOK, I totally agree with you 100% on this. I have noticed that the usually casual yet polite things are starting to vanish. I no longer see guys hold doors for girls, or hold the doors for anyone for that matter. We are becoming extremely lenient on the content that has forced its way into our daily conversations, with profanity, immoral arguments, and obscene gestures. There must be some sort of way to pull up from this death spiral before we all end up in or as the waste of society.
This problem's blame is to fall partially upon our parents. They are inclined, if not obligated, to make sure that their children are growing up to be self respecting individuals, as well as respectful towards others. And with the divorce rate soaring, many kids do not get the proper instruction as to how to exhibit these respectful practices.
And although I have been raised to be a help to society, I too sometimes get caught up in society's muck, and succumb to bad practices. What are we to do?
I believe too many people consume their time with material things. There are more important things to life than our material things. Even though we use technology too much sometimes, they have become apart of our loves essentially.
Well, I really don't think you will ever get tired of your new Wii Ms. Stoklosa, I know I won't wellI don't have one but my cousin does and evey time I go to her house we play american idol karaoke haha yes I know you extremely dislike that show but the game is fun! maybe since your hubby likes the show he should buy the game so you can make fun of his singing haha(: well anyways, most people just like having materialistic things like getting a Mercedes 2009 rather than getting a Toyota 1999 I mean aren't they the same thing? There still both cars that run, why do people or just us spoiled brat teenagers just like going for the materialistic things? Then when those things start to fade, then they/we want more? why can't everyone just be happy for what they have?
I know exactly how you feel. Let’s face it though, in our society we can't have things without better things which perform better and have a shitload of more gadgets come out and make whatever we have....antiquated. People get over what they lost relatively fast when we have something new to love so at least we get better things to love. For example I had my Motorola Slvr for 2 years and it went through everything with me and never failed. Too much time had passed and it just got old like my ex so I had to get a new one. My baby now is the G1 with Google. She caters to me with everything my ex phone did and more. I’m glad i found her and wouldn't let her go with her GPS, internet access for easy e-mail, MySpace, facebook, IM; touch screen, great camera, Wikipedia, dictionary, games, music and Google. I miss you slvr, but G1 is the future for me. We're done. Our love is R.I.P.
We do live in a time where people are so easily willing to trade in what they have for newer things. In an economic sense it is a good thing. It creates new jobs and businesses. Socially though I completely agree with you. We so easily give up on people for someone new. We no longer even give people a chance because we are always looking for someone else. This is a huge problem with our society and its only going to get worse as means of technology and communication improve.
I'm not going to lie, I'm definitely a victim of this whole "I-get-tired-of-something-after-five-seconds" disease. It's never with people, actually I'm the exact opposite with humans. I try to keep them with me for as long as I can. Technology is a whole other story. It might be because I consider myself "tech-savvy", but I always find something new that could potentially replace something I already have. Like for example, when I got my iPhone I was sure that it was the phone of my dreams and just a year after, Apple released the new version of the iPhone. I just think that as humans, we will always have a limited attention span for a certain something and it's even harder to ignore that fact when companies spit out new products every week.
It is true, our overwhelming desire to reach for any of our goodies like brand new iPhone, our PS3's, and yes, even our tivo at home is no good what so ever. But i mean, is it our fault to be lead on with new technology that comes out every several months. To my belief its a total bad habit and extremely horrifying. But like i said is it truely our fault. Propaganda such as commercials, movies, and newpapers, companies try every single tricks in the book to catch others attention and purchase their product. Isn't that astonishing.
I believe that we in a way are becoming too dependent on technology.
But i mean come on. Who doesn't love wii bowling or tennis?
lol.
It's the small things in life that we cherish most.
So cherish them.
This is a problem in modern day society. Were cellphones become obsolite in a couple months, and a kid needs a new video game every 4 days. However some people aren't like this, I've had the same crappy ceelphone for a couple years, and I don't ever play video games. A lot of kids are like me, who would rather go to the gym than the virtual gym on the Wii. I believe this article only applies to a certain amount of people.
It's all just a marketing ploy. Companies make a product, and then a year later come out with the same one but even better. I always try to cherish the old along with the new. Like when they came out with the big chunky Nintendo DS and then way later they came out with a sleeker, thinner model, I became determined to keep my old DS. It's the same thing! but chunkier! Plus i think it has a greater resistance to breakage than the new one. But like all technology I gradually stopped using it.
Your blog also reminded me of a joke saying how men are like computers in the way that once you find a guy, you realize later that if you had waited, someone better would have come along. :)
I agree that we go through technology way to fast these days. I remember when I got my razor phone like 3 or 4 years ago. I was so excited and people actually said, "You're so lucky you have that phone." Then we moved on to Black Berry's and I Phones. Its amazing how we can just get over one thing and move on to the next. It's the same thing with style. The style changes so quickly. One day it's considered "cool" to wear Abercrombie and now its even cooler to wear Hollister. Sometimes I have trouble keeping up with all these changes in society.
I would have to agree. I do think that as a whole, society can't grasp and really appreciate anything we have. Whether it be technology, material possessions or relationships, people have a hard time being 'happy' with what they have. Life shouldn't be a matter of having what you want, it should revolve around wanting what you already have.
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