After going through this week’s selections of readings I have had more than just 2 “ah-ha” moments of realization and interpretation, however I will just outline a few for you in this reflection. Since I am currently a young college student who has had the privilege of growing up in a generation where technology has not only boomed but become a necessity to our everyday life as a successful and striving human race, I have seen and experienced many new devices. Where would be today without the inevitable replacement of computers for typewriters and cell phones for oral communication? How would we communication with such immediacy were it not for fax machines, the internet, e-mail and our ever trusty laptops and blackberries?
I find it so interesting that today we find these devices not only complimentary to our everyday lives but completely necessary to living out the lives we desire. Although, 50 years ago these devices might have been developed were it not for the humans’ fear of technology and the lack of resources and reliability of the expertise of that day. There were people with the ideas and abilities to create the automobile back in
Egypt’s days of Pharaohs and pyramids, yet technology’s reliability and costs outweighed the benefits of a new invention and creation. Just think what the impact may have been had an Egyptian citizen driven down Pharaoh’s main street in one of Ford’s first revolutionary vehicles? The impact would have been so extraordinary, almost to the point that mankind could not have handled the vast increase in technology so quickly. Although we have the means to create and expand our current technology beyond common thought today, the human race is constantly in denial and rejection to both considerable and small changes in technology; yet once we obtain a new device we can’t imagine how life existed without it.
Vannevar Bush’s description of the “memex” in 1945 quite resembled or seemed a precursor to the computers that would one day control our very routine and life-design. This “memex” would be a way for everyone from philosophers, historians, psychologists, doctors, teachers and the everyday commoner to research, retain and remember all that he could at an average library with the touch of a few buttons. He could pull up a page and scroll through the book by 1, 10 or 100 pages a time without having to flip through the actual physical pages of a book. The idea seems revolutionary to have a whole library at your fingertips, but with today’s technology of the computer and the internet you not only have a library at your fingertips but the entire world at the click of a button, whether that be a book, a film, a person or a country you wish you explore. The “memex” was like what pencil would be to the modern keyboard on a laptop- a simple, yet revolutionary and reliable means of recording and revisiting information that you could use day in and day out.
While the “memex” can be seen as a precursor to the modern internet and computer revolution I believe that the internet will proceed leaps and bounds from where it stands today till where it will stand in 2045. In 2045 I will be a whopping 57 years old and can only imagine my generation’s everyday reliance on the internet. I believe it will be the source of all our bank statements, bill paying, movie watching, shopping, theatre exploring, record keeping, art exploration and retention, as well as our sole means of communication with one another. It is almost a scary thought to think about the immense reliance our world has and will have in the future on the internet.
Discussion Questions :
Is our reliance on the internet a safe and resourceful way of living or will is one day catch up with our world and get the better of us?
If technology we have today could have been developed hundreds of years ago with more money, mankind’s approval and more reliability do you think that there are devices that could be developed right now that are NOT being developed because of these very same reasons? Is marketing and commercial profit have anything to do with these stalls in production as well? (ex: The Nano ipod could have been developed years ago, but think of all the money Apple made off of consumers in the first ipod’s years of discovery and consumption.)
