OPINIONS
THE BOON AND BANE OF SOCIETY YOUR LOVE FOR TECHNOLOGY CAN BE A FATAL ATTRACTION ERIK HERNANDEZ CONTRIBUTOR
My iPhone is my best friend. I take it out to check my latest Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram notifications. Being obsessed with Apple, I even take out my iPhone to check out the latest products being introduced. I could be seen twiddling my thumbs over my iPhone screen in class while Steve Jobs was presenting the next iPhone in one of his mesmerizing keynotes before his death. Let’s get this straight: I love technology. I also have come to the realization that the more gadgets Apple or any other electronic company releases, the more society tends to lean on large corporations to gain simplicity in life. One of the benchmark gadgets that almost all of Silicon Valley and other phone manufacturers have produced is the smartphone. The smartphone revolutionized the telephone and cellular phones as we know them to be. A smartphone has more distinct features that are designed to make it “smarter” than
its predecessors. A user can now access the internet, listen to music, and even talk to their phone all by controlling the simple touchscreen user interface that most smartphones were born with. It is easy to say that we can put our smartphones down but it is actually harder to do with how realiant today’s society is technology. The more I find students on campus, or ordinary people on the street with their smartphones out, the more I feel too insecure about living in this kind of society. Don’t get me wrong; I would die without my iPhone but I feel like I am sometimes too attached to my lover. I rely on it most of the time, looking up words in the Dictionary.com app instead of looking in an actual dictionary to search for a word’s meaning. I sometimes even text my friends to tell them I am waiting outside in my car instead of going to knock on their door. The point is that I rely on my smartphone too much and I feel like most
smartphone users do too. Civility is also a key issue in this topic. We are slowly losing our manners and our politeness. Sometimes my friends are on their smartphones checking for texts or Facebook notifications while I am trying to have an important conversation with them. All I want to do is to tell them to put their fucking phone down. Even at the dining table people still text and chat with other people online instead of focusing on the presence of others. Another uncivil memento I have come to find is that some students on campus don’t always show a patch of kindness either. You can find many students on their smartphones and/or laptops “taking notes” while an educator is speaking. I find it especially rude because professors commute to school thinking that their students are listening to what they have to say. Don’t get me wrong, I can be uncivil sometimes due to my excessive use
of technology. I am just revealing the ramifications of the situations we place ourselves in by relying heavily on technology. Smartphones are truly the gateway drug of society. It is scary that maybe one day we will find ourselves solely communicating over text instead of communicating vocally. We will probably also rely on technology to do other things for us. I also say that some day we may even be doomed just because our excessive technology use will make our society uncivil. If this ever happened, it would happen in a slow manner as we progress into the future. Today, we have cars taking us places instead of using our own two feet, we have TVs to keep us entertained instead of getting entertained by the presence of others, and we have smartphones to keep us updated on the latest 411. Technology is a good and bad thing. It just depends on how much you want it to control your life.
UNION WEEKLY
27 AUGUST 2012
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