MY VIEW: Married to technology? Guilty.
Technology and me? Yeah, we go way back. From playing games on the Nintendo 64 as a kid all the way to occasionally stalking a celebrity’s Twitter or Instagram profile today. Technology and I have been pretty tight for as long as I remember. We have definitely had some ups and downs, but in the end, technology always seems to have my back. Whether it is the ever loyal Google lending me a hand with some problems (both mathematical and personal) or Netflix hanging out with me on days where I have too much free time on my hands (you’re a real pal, Netflix), it seems I have begun to rely on technology for the most simple things. Is this a problem?
Let’s be honest, while technology is certainly a wonderland, it’s also a wasteland in many ways. Do you know how many hours I have spent on YouTube when I could have been working on homework? A lot. In fact, I may have actually taken a few short breaks while writing this to watch Thomas Sanders on Vine. Okay, so let’s be honest again, that’s really not technology’s fault. It’s mine. The temptation is always there because when you have the whole world at your fingertips, it’s really not that hard to switch between tabs and lose yourself in the oh-so-incredible world of the Internet. It’s almost like everywhere we look, there’s some form of technology pointing itself out with a 10-ton neon sign: “Hey! Look at me! I’m new/interesting/fun!” How could someone possibly pass up acknowledging something like that? I’m weak; I know I can’t pass that up. How do I know that? It may be because I often find myself going through countless Clickbait articles, wondering seven hours later where I went wrong. That’s a slight exaggeration, but in my defense, heck, yeah, I wanna see the 10 biggest dogs of 2015. What can I say? I’m pretty much Buzzfeed trash.
However, I will never forget the times when technology let me down. I have definitely learned to forgive, but I’m still working on the forgetting part. I still hold a grudge against a certain printer that jammed during regionals and got me disqualified for not turning my news article in on time. The thing is, though, I definitely wouldn’t go back to writing on paper because of this tech failure. I have found many ways to excuse what the printer did to me and blame myself, and I completely refuse to write with a pen or pencil again. I still trust technology despite the times it has eaten my assignments and spit them out somewhere in cyberspace limbo. Maybe I do have a problem.
It’s crazy to think how much technology has changed the way I look at life and even crazier to think about what my life would be without it. It’s pretty safe to say that technology and I are a package deal. When you get me, you get me and technology…Did I just unofficially marry myself to technology? I might have, and the odd thing is, I’m okay with that.
