What is the first thing you do when you
wake up? Before even deciding to wake up I grab my phone and shift through new
BBMs, e-mails, and Facebook notifications. Once I succeed, I walk over to my
computer and answer my e-mails. Some studies have suggested that this
generation, the iGeneration, is one of the hardest working generations since we
are constantly available to connect and respond. Our limbs have extended
themselves with smartphones and tablets, while our ears have grown cuffs with
ear buds and earphones, sooner or later our eyes will be shielded by glasses
that determine an idealized virtual reality.
Let’s
admit it, we rely on technology to connect. Yahoo and Hotmail are adults,
who’ve grown too old to be first-generation adapters. Google is that geeky
friend who is no longer considered a geek because he knows information other
than sciences. Facebook is the popular girl who introduces her friends to her
new friends, over-likes everything she sees, as well as posts funny and
regretful photos, without forgetting to leave a backstabbing comment in public.
While, Twitter is a community of chatterboxes who assumes that everyone wants
to know her activities by the hour. They are labels, but just as or more often
as we communicate with our friends, we access these sites every day, even
multiple times in a single day.
Technology
has made life much easier. Today, academic and professional assignments are
submitted through the net; plane, concert and even parking tickets could be
redeemed online; music and movies are either streamed or downloaded from the
net; and your life stories are available for the entire virtual population to
access. But, at what cost? Ironically the more we connect, the more
disconnected we become with the people around us. Yes, living on the other side
of the world has become much easier with Skype. But at dinnertime at home,
instead of eating and sharing stories, everyone is staring at their phones.
Moreover, the stages of a romantic relationship have been altered, instead of
exchanging rich hand-written letters, we send a quick sentence to the guy
across the room. My friends have often given up on a potential girl/guy just
because he/she only read and did not respond to the text immediately.
Ultimately,
technology, whether it is your smart phone, the Internet, your laptop, or iPad,
consumes our lives, both positively and negatively. It has reinvented our
lifestyles and perception of the world. To me, new universal layers have
emerged with sites such as Facebook and twitter. My father often asks me what
it is I am doing, especially when I have my phone in one hand, the TV on in
front of me, my laptop beside me for hours and not completing one single assignment.
Technology is a gift and a curse, much like superpowers. Now it’s up to you to enable
it for good or evil.
*Originally written for Speak! Magazine, Indonesia
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Person to person communication will be a skill in Human Capital competency dictionary sooner then I had thought, so keep it strong. Read for your enjoyment, write like a famous poet, speak like many of your favorite anchors. Technologies are tools only
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