Well, hello there..
So I'm just going to come right out and say it. Technology is ruining humanity.
NOW NOW NOW.. before we get ahead of ourselves, I admit I am a slave to my mobile phone. It's like my upmost most prized possession. However, I'm old enough to have one as I have friends to communicate with and social networking sites that need my opinions and randomness to excite their news feeds.
What I don't understand is why children that are 10 have mobile phones. Nonono I'm not talking about your average nokia brick phone, that has the oh so mesmerizing snake game. Hell no! I'm talking about blackberrys, iphones and so on.
Yeah yeah okay I understand that some parents may need to contact their children if they work and need to pick them up from school or somewhere. Seriously, HELLO YOU CAN DO THAT ON A £15 MOBILE PHONE.
Picture this.
You're at a dinner party with family and friends, just ate a beautiful plate of homemade biryani with salad that isn't just green, dull and ugly. You're sitting down on a sofa surrounded by people you love (well they have to be likeable at least otherwise you wouldn't be at the dinner party.. don't complain they have fed you!) anyway moving on.. yeah so you're all talking, laughing etc. When you turn your head slightly to where some of the younger children are sitting at. Then you see the following.
They are all just sitting there, either on: ipads. iphones. blackberrys. or even samsungs.
So whatever they may be playing a game but come on, when I was like 7 I used to play ludo or hide and seek and irritate my mother by nearly bashing into the table because I was running around like a headless chicken.
Being free, playing around, not taking anything seriously, isn't that what being a child is about? I thought people get stuck behind a computer screen when they are working! Gosh I would do anything to become a child again, or just have that free mind. Where you don't have to worry about failing in life, because you're doing what you want to do. Adults that are happy in the career that they are in right now are really lucky, it freaks me out that I don't even know what my favourite subject is. PFT. And I'm expected to attend university next year, god help me. Please.. pretty please.
Well, I think thats enough of some sort of rant, or blog, or well I think I've just complained tbh, if that counts as anything. Time to leave off on a random note..
' I'VE GOT THOSE HAPPY FEEEET' :'D
- Hen-nah
I’m really glad you wrote about this. It’s a really important issue.
ReplyDeleteMobile phone technology has changed humanity and I agree it is ‘ruining humanity’. It’s not just at dinner parties that people are glued to their chosen gadget and it’s not just young kids – it’s everyone (apart from me of course!) ALL THE BLOODY TIME! And what are they doing? Finding out about an interesting writer, director, artist, musician, scientist, politician? Researching quantum physics, the Wars of the Roses, or the abuses of so-called democratic governments around the world? They could be. But they’re not. They’re on bloody facebook, or twatter (misprint intentional), or posting ‘selfies’ on Instagram. Let’s face it, the internet has become a cornucopia of vanity and self-indulgence.
What’s more, it’s hopelessly addictive. Within days, if not hours, of owning one of these devices, the user is obsessed, wasting their lives in a frenzy of tapping and swiping. And what’s worse, these addicts don’t even realise they have a problem! If smart phones were a drug they would have been prohibited years ago and those smooth talking pushers in Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4 U locked up for a ten year stretch!
Not that I’m a complete technophobe. My computer is my best friend (literally): I use it to make music ; it is my bookshop, record shop and library; it serves as a TV and a stereo. However, for me, the problem arises when technology is aligned with consumerism. In his novel '1982, Janine' Alasdair Gray declares that ‘Modern technology cannot solve the world’s problems because in all societies technology is used to accumulate wealth, not spread it.’ While technology promises much - freedom of information, expression, communication – what it really delivers is enormous wealth for the few and an insatiable and interminable desire for the latest gadget for the many.
In Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, '1984', the protagonist Winston Smith has a ‘telescreen’ in his flat, which is used by Big Brother for surveillance and to disseminate propaganda and false news reports. Winston Smith would rid himself of this screen if he could, but of course that is not an option. In 2013, the majority of the population of Britain willingly carry their own ‘telescreens’ around with them everywhere they go, readily informing whoever wants to know of their every thought and movement. We have become our own Big Brother.
Sorry, I think I got a bit carried away. I'm not really a bitter, twisted, cycnical misanthrope. Honest.
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