Are we too reliant on technology? It’s hard to say. After all, it has made life a lot better and far more interesting for me. Sure, it’s something that I could live without but it wouldn’t be a choice I’d willingly make. Like a lot of people, I’ve come to rely on it a great deal. A bit too much, I might add. Like yesterday, I made a stupid typo in my writing where I used the wrong word in a sentence. However, it was picked up by WordPress’ ‘proofread’ feature. Saved my ass.
Instead of memorizing directions to some place, I could just a navigation app to guide me there. Instead of digging through an encyclopedia for information, I can just Google it. Instead of spending money talking to people on the other side of the world, I can just drop them a message or email. Or tag them on Facebook. For free. It’s great!
But not all of it has been positive. I no longer take the trouble to memorize phone numbers. I mistype words on my phone because I know autocorrect will suggest the right one. I no longer remember to do things, I just set myself reminders on my phone. And the list goes on. Note – I don’t blame technology for these things, they just became byproducts of my reliance on it.
Does this make me worse as a person? Probably. If my computer and smartphone were to all suddenly fail for no reason, I’d be pretty screwed. And I wouldn’t be able to ask my friends and family if their devices were broken too because I haven’t memorized their home phone numbers (who even has a wall phone plugged in these days?).
Don’t know what I’m getting at, but I was just inspired to write this for today’s post after reading this interesting article.