Are we changing technology or technology is changing us?
Since the first class session last week, the question “Are we changing the technology or technology is changing us?” seems still stick in my head. In my lifetime, I have been fortunately seeing the drastic change of the information and communication technology, notably the Internet over the last decade. The video “Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us” we watched in class was created in 2007 that was about the time when I had Internet access at home and started exploring the dot com world. Thus the video was really a trip down memory lane as it gave me a glimpse of how the web looked like at an earlier time and provoked the excitement I had when surfing the web for the first time ten years ago.
Since then, Internet has become a vital part of my life and it is totally not exaggerated to say I cannot live a day without the Internet. Navigating around the city, checking weather forecast, Googling for something I do not know, looking up dictionary, and reading the latest news are just a few things that I heavily rely on the Internet. There is no doubt in mind that technology has not only changed the way I get things done but also influenced the way I think. Indeed I tend not to try to remember the information that I can quickly refer to via Internet such as historical events which I think nobody bothers to remember nowadays or the places I have been to.
Our millennial generation often takes the technology advancement for granted and most of us seem to be unconscious of the fact that technology has great impact on our lives. The impact could sometimes become terribly negative if we do not pay sufficient attention to manage and control the use of technology. In this article, Larry Alton briefly summed up four ways that using technology might be adverse. He claims that technology hampers our concentration, changes the way we read, stimulates the fear of missing out, and takes away our enjoyment of special moments. From our own experience, I am sure that we all agree with his claims without any hesitation. Therefore, I think that understanding the noxious effects of technology is essential for all of us in the digital age and as Larry concluded “Right now, it’s just a matter of protecting our brains and finding ways to offset the negatives before they become even more pervasive.”
So, how could we enjoy the advancement of technology and keep its negative effects minimal? I do not think there will be an exact answer for this question and some of us might already have the answer for ourselves. Because at the end of the day using technology and using it to what extent are completely your choice.
