Imagine this: It is Friday night; you just sat down on the couch after eating dinner, the TV remote gripped softly in your hand. You lift up the remote ever so slightly so the cable box can receive the signal that you want to change the channel but then…nothing happens. Frantically, you start pushing all the buttons to test if the remote control is dead. Turns out it is and you groan as you have to get up and put new batteries in. Imagine the slight heartbreak you feel when the new batteries don’t even work. RIP to your TV remote and one form of your entertainment choices.
This scenario isn’t actually fictitious; it happened to my mom and I this past Friday night. We tried to turn off the TV with the remote but to no avail. As I got up to manually turn off the TV I jokingly cried out, “Our remote is broken. How are we going to live?!” Ten minutes later my mom is on the phone with Direct TV ordering a new remote control. While she was on the phone she whispered to me, “How sad are we? We can’t even hold off on getting a new remote”.
In the moment that my mom whispered to me I had a flashback to my philosophy class from this past semester. This class focused heavily on technology and the power it has over us. In this class, we learned that rather than bringing people together, technology actually disconnects us from one another. Sure people come together to watch TV, but that is all they are doing, watching a screen. No words are exchanged and whenever someone does try to talk, another person in the room is quick to shush them so they can hear the rest of the program. I knew technology had a hold on us but when the light bulb turned on in my head it took me aback. Why were we so quick to buy a new remote from the company when I’m leaving back to school in a couple of weeks? My mom is barely home to watch TV so why does it matter if there is a remote or not? It’s not a huge secret but we were so quick to act because we could not imagine a Family Room without a working TV, even if no one is home.
This may not be the case for everyone but when I’m bored I pull my phone out of my back pocket and find something to do on it. Once I’ve gone through all social media profiles I lock my phone and slide it back into my pocket; yet five minutes later I pull it out and see what new things my “friends” have shared on Twitter and Facebook. When you go out in public and see little ones behaving and being quiet, it is most likely because they have technology to occupy them, or rather, babysit them. Kids hold onto iPads, cell phones, and game consoles for dear life these days. Exposition to technology starts at much younger ages now and while it may be helping out whoever is watching the kids because now they don’t need to look after them 24/7, it is actually not helping the children.
I am not here to dismiss technology; I think it is a truly great thing and can actually connect people on some level. I am simply sharing an epiphany I had about technology in my daily life. I strongly encourage everyone to take the time to examine how much they rely on technology to “survive”. You will be amazed and embarrassed.
