Every time I go to the gym, I leave my cell phone behind in my dorm room. I enjoy the hour I get to myself being out of contact from others, and not constantly feeling paranoid to check my phone for text messages or facebook updates. When I first heard of my Composition class assignment to write a blog over technology, I instantly thought of writing about the inconvenience technology has cast on us, despite its many pros. Then the snowstorm came.
My friends and I clearly were going to take full advantage of the snow and have a night out sledding. After a few fun hours out on the hills, we decided to take our freezing bodies back to the dorm. On our way back we saw a young guy and his girlfriend stuck in one of the many snowdrifts, we turned around to help them. I’m sure it was there that my cell phone slipped out of my pocket. When I got back into my dorm room I realized what I was missing, my friends and I went to retrace all our tracks for that night. It was nowhere to be found. Right away, I needed that lost cell phone to call my mom to inform her I will need to contact Verizon Wireless immediately.
Over the course of a weekend and a few days, I was constantly inconvenienced without my phone. Yes, I will admit, I loved the downtime and being out of reach to people, but it got very old. I needed my phone to call a friend for help with homework, I needed my phone for my alarm, I didn’t have it to make plans or stay connected to the world. I kept having to bug my roommate and suitemates to “please let me borrow your phone.” It was because of those few days that I realized just how dependent our society has become upon technology. A few years ago, my phone was only used to keep in contact with my parents. Now, it is more than an emergency device. It is a key to my social life, a necessity for school (checking email while out), and has many features such as the alarm I also use daily. As more and more is added to the cell phone to use, the more dependent I’ve become on it.
In the last couple years, technology has become a key to your education. Not only do you need it to search and google information you wouldn’t already know; but also it is the main, and sometimes only way, to contact instructors. PowerPoint’s, syllabi, other updates are constantly being put on the internet for students. During the snowstorm, my instructors communicated with me through email and the school website, Desire2Learn. Without this, I would probably already be failing most of my classes. With almost anything these days, technology is needed and I, like the rest of the world, have become a full-blown technology user.
With technology surrounding me everywhere I go, I can’t help but to wonder if I’ve become more dependent on technology, or because of the advances in technology I’ve been forced to become more dependent? For me, the more technology advances, the easier I find myself depending on it. Which leads me to also ask myself is this obsession a positive or negative thing? And what would the outcome be if we were to suddenly lose all our technology? These are questions we all should ask ourselves next time were pulling out our cell phone to chat with an old friend, rather than personally talking with them face to face. Just because technology can be used for just about anything, doesn’t mean we should always resort to it.
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