He said:
It's not an understatement to say that we are a very well connected society. People on different continents can talk to one another face to face in a matter of moments, concerned parents can track their high school kid's exploits, and people can express whole phrases with the typing of two or three letters. Our thoughts and ideas are much more accessible on a worldwide scale.
We as people have even managed to eliminate having to actually talk to one another when attempting to transport ideas to each other. Enter texting. The idea of texting originated with the Native Americans when one particular Native American girl was late for a party so her friends sent her 23 smoke signals in less than 10 minutes. She replied to every one of them.
On one hand, texting is fantastic because it eliminates having to be cordial with your friends. It saves time and they know you don't want to know how their day is. If something important is happening, they're going to tell you anyway. Most likely you'll read it on their blog. Instead, you can get straight to business: "Hungry?" "Chillax?" "What's the homework?"
Or at least that's how most guys are about it. Men aren't really into writing epically long discourses via text, unless there's a girl involved. Then they are Homer. Guys understand that girls have a special connection with their phones -- almost like spirit animals except instead of guidance, it sings "Wagon Wheel" and tells you about funny things that happened in Abercrombie.
At this point, direct human interaction is only a last resort. Only when we feel we really need to drive a point home is when we call. Otherwise, we just need to make sure that your thumbs work. How many times have you copped out on someone by using text instead of calling them so that you can spare yourself a little guilt? "Not tonight. Sorry, dood."
People tend to get tangled up in their technology. We have little phones that are also Web browsers, movie theaters, lawnmowers and mp3 players. Whole identities become based upon how many people have befriended them on MySpace or how many photos they have been tagged in. You're only as cool as your Facebook page, and some people really do judge one another by how they choose to present themselves on the Web. Which, I guess, is fair when you think about it. The site gives you a template over which you have total creative freedom in figuring out how to display yourself, so in a way it's an extension of how you would like people to see you. Which is why my Facebook features me dressed as different Transformers.
Then there are the people who play games such as World of Warcraft. Though the most dedicated of these individuals certainly surrender an amount of who they are to their technology, I actually really admire this demographic of people because they are just being honest with themselves -- more honest than either you or I, at least. Instead of having to hear about the multiple implications behind how your roommate pronounced "hi," they would rather be fighting dragons.
The fact that we are so connected and the subsequent result of what that has done to us as a people slightly frightens me. Is there a point that we have yet to reach when we will become too connected? The only way that technology could continue to impress me is to figure out how to improve the quality of my communication with others. For example, having my phone taser me through the receiver every time I try to drunk dial someone. Other than that, it might be nice to take a step back every once in awhile, look up at the sky and not wonder about its pixel rate.
She said:
Everybody has bad days. It happens. It's natural. It sucks.
During one of these times of my own, a friend's Facebook status -- because the world demands mindless Facebook stalking time to keep you in the loop -- alerted me to a new site that has not only given me a couple laughs, but also makes me appreciate the magnitudes of misery that we may have been graciously and divinely spared in our own daily lives.
Fmylife.com is a rising pop cult site that, in the likes of Web phenomena such as YouTube and Facebook, is gaining in popularity especially of late in the Virginia Tech community.
As I was perusing the anecdotes that people have shared about how girlfriends are let down in the bedroom ("Are you in yet? Oh."), several the-McDonald-cashier-made-a-joke-about-my-weight stories and the darndest things parents say, I came to a stark realization of how much technology really has impacted our lives as a generation -- and, more so, how it seems to hinder us.
A lot of the stories on FML pertain to relationships and the subsequent soap-opera quality that many of them possess. For example, one guy accidently texted his long-time girlfriend with something along the lines of, "I'll break up with her soon. Love u."
Burn. I hope that the girl, after posting her story on FML, went straight to one of those put-him-in-the-doghouse-and-make-sure-he-never-ever-gets-thrown-a-bone-again Web sites and put up a picture and description to warn other susceptible ladies of his menacing presence on this earth. I personally don't understand why so many men dare to verify whether Hell really hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Technology is the worst kind of paradox, where it's so bittersweet that you cannot decide whether it helps or holds you back simply because it does both.
You need a computer to type up an essay for English -- thank goodness we have that instead of a quill and ink well, imagine (oh, the horror) how much less time we would be able to spend on Facebook -- but that same computer is hooked up to the Internet where its complicated web of distractions lurk in the pop ups to deter you from your work.
Technology most notably can screw you in your personal life; from MySpace to mobile to instant messaging, the keyboard has evolved to become dangerously mightier than the sword.
Tell me one person who has not been involved in a text message war where something you T9ed came out in a way other than how you intended it.
Uh huh. I thought so.
This makes me think about how there have been studies on how we have become so isolated thanks to technology. I'm not too sure of the details, but I heard about how people don't really go to coffee shops to talk anymore; they just pick up their low-fat mochas with a shot of something or another from the register and retire to the microcosm of their Macbooks.
Sure, they might click iChat and type to a couple friends, but there's little-to-no chance that they'll escape and make some new friends. Have we become so introverted to the point that we've unconsciously relinquished that which makes us human in the first place? Our ability to reach out to one another and come together to talk, think, discuss and share the idiosyncrasies of life?
So not only can our mothers text us about our exams and schoolwork, but we can also learn in the most degrading fashion that some guy who we've spent a lot of time with just wants to be friends, you know, so he can pursue that chick from Biology.
Oh, they'll be studying biology all right.
And you're left with just a phone.