First of all, like i said before, we are so spoiled and don't even think twice about it! Technolgy is basically anything that has been made to help make things easier. Technology was said to be the process of creating things to meet our needs and wants. But what defines the great line between "need" and "want"? Things start to intertwine when you get too detailed. Our needs/necessities are food, air and water, right!? Air is a free-be, but food and water are where things become difficult. We have so many choices of food. We want Edwardo's, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Subway, Olive Garden, home made food...and anything else we like/want, whatever gives our taste buds satisfaction. And then Water...why are there so many different types of bottled water? We have faucet water for free, that is clean! What's better? Aquafina or Ice Mountain? Fiji or DejaBlue? Nestle or Meijer brand? Water is water! it tastes good as long as it is cold. So why am i rambling on about this stuff? Where am i going? Well these choices were made by people who decided to make things more interesting by the process of technology. The places were built in order to make your food and bottle your faucet water from somewhere else. Besides these basic necessities, comes everything else we "want", not "need". We get the electronics that we call "technology", we get amusement parks, water parks, movie theatres (with movies of course), record players which evolved into iPods, bikes which evoled into motorcycles and buggies which turned into cars, paintings turned into photographs (b/c cameras were created), needles and thread were made into a sewing machine... Everything in our life was first something simple.Engineers, scientists and construction has helped create these things through out the years. So technology has definitely impacted my life. Unless you live in a third-world country, your choices are endless. From the second i wake up to the second i go to sleep, technolgy is inloved. I wake up to an alarm clock, i shower with running water, cook my food in a toaster or microwave, i get to school and back home by a car, i eat food from a refrigerator and use a stove, i decide what entertainment i want, which then leads me into a break down of all these things and things in between. I listen to music pretty much all day from a CD, ipod, tape player, radio, music videos on TV or online, which were created through technology. I play video games, i communicate with a phone, i wear different clothes that were designed and manufactured. Take a look around your house and think where they came from, how were they made, what would be there had that thing not existed. Why do we need anything, what is it worth? It is worth a short amount of our attention and gives us a certain amount of pleasure before we move onto the next thing. So again, where is your line between "need" and "want"?
(!: Mrs. Medley, i think i turned this into an exploratoty essay on accident!)
nerds:
uno:http://hoekstraj1.blogspot.com/
dos: http://thelyricalassasin.blogspot.com/
3 comments:
well miss ninacabina, i am very into what you were saying. everything is not a need and we do need to decide what is most important in life.there is too much in the world today that has been affected by technology.i often wonder the same question you asked. where would we be if technology didnt exist?
You DID turn this into an Exploratory essay! :-D
BTW, I replied to your Cyberculture post, too, but the reply isn't there. I must not have signed in or something.
In response to "need" and "want," I don't know that I would lump technology into this. I think I'd put technology into the "progress" category.
Think about the printing press. Before the printing press, anything published was controlled by those who could transcribe (scribes) information by hand. Even then, the transcribed information wasn't available to everyone at all times. With the printing press, suddenly, information was available to a larger number of people, more often than before. This was an enormous change in the world as it was known then. It's not incorrect to say that empires crumbled as a result of the printing press.
I look at technology sort of as the printing press of the 20/21 Century. More information is available more often than ever before in our lives. Information will continue to be available, at larger quantities and more frequently. For example, no longer does it take a tedious, long time to find out if the political candidate you wish to support is true to his word, you can find the information in a manner of minutes online.
What we've been doing in class has hopefully given you the tools to wade through this enormous amount of information and also given you the ability to discern what is true and what is false.
Think about the countries who block access to certain websites and strictly regulate the websites of their own countrymen. It's all about the information.
This post and Ms. Medley's response have shown me a perspective which without technology I may have never seen.
I am torn between these two perspectives; that much of technology is indeed needless, but then there are those items (such as the printing press) which are not needs, but have benefited humanity in ways few spears or shovels could have.
Technology has aided in bringing to civilization fresh, clean water and this is obviously a great feat, yet it has also allowed for individuals to charge for something which is not only free, but by it's nature incapable of being owned. While pondering the fact that (regarding faucet water) we are paying more for the service of transporting and cleansing of that water more than the water itself, I've come to the realization that the "need" for technology is not the issue, as we have been implimenting technological advancement since pre-history; but rather what is the extent to which we shall incorporate our want for convenience into our "needs."
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