Digitally Deprived: A Survival Story
As I sit here and recall my last nineteen long years on this planet and my various interactions with different mediums of technology, it has become very obvious to me that I, like most people where I am from, have had really no major interactions with technology compared to others in my age group. I sit in coffee joints at night and watch people become more introverted than a turtle, ducking into their little shells of technological safety. They look at you through their faux, so-call trendy DKNY knock-off glasses, dressed in their Abercrombie clothes, hiding behind nothing but the glow of a laptop or in the corner talking to someone on their cell phones which just happens to match what they are
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I am quite proud to say that I never had a cell until I got to Michigan, and that there is more in life than to walk around with it stuck to your face. City people could learn a lot from those who, as some say, "Have a little red on our necks." I sure believe that would be a lot more friendly at least, and I am not talking about the one-fingered wave!
It really shocks me to be an outsider to this city life, although many argue that this is not the city at all. I have to disagree, when you come from a town of about two thousand people, this place is a huge booming metropolis to me, filled with late-night hang-outs, trendy coffee shops, and malls within five minutes from your house. I usually drive anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour to get anywhere I can buy anything, besides gas, which my town only has one place for.
You can call me a small town girl, I don’t mind, even Country Mouse if you prefer. It’s not uncommon to hear smirks and giggles from the back of the room. Whispers of "Hick" and "Billy" have been murmured in my presence, but I laugh it off and think to my self, "When your ear falls off from all the radiation you get from holding your cell up to your ear 24/7, I’ll be the one laughing." I am proud to say that I haven’t had a lot of technology in my life. It makes me feel less, well, corrupt I guess in a sense. I never felt the need to rush home and hop on AOL for 5
People think that technology is their life but in reality it is not. Technology is just something that entertains you. It is not the most important thing in life you can literally go at least a month without your phone even though you think that you cannot. I have had to do it before for six months. People can live without their phones and one example of putting our phones down is when I went to Altitude last night and we were all on trampolines playing dodge ball and throwing and dodging during the game and being active and none of us had our phones out texting or looking at social media so it really was not that hard to put down my phone. In Fahrenheit 451 there was a character named Montag
People who become too accustomed to lives based around technology will no longer interact in the real world. Today people rely on technology for many things such as communication, entertainment, transportation, e.t.c. For example, in Ray Bradbury’s work “The Pedestrian”, the world has diminished into lives lived sitting in front of TV screens. He writes, “The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multi-colored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them”, (Bradbury, 60). In this example Bradbury describes the life of people watching television all day and seeing the sights on-screen, but not being inspired or enlightened to go outside to experience it. Most people prefer to stay
No matter where you turn your head, no matter where you look, there is always going to be a screen. There is going to be “entertainment.” At some point you are going to start feeling as if being around entertainment (technology) is what you NEED, whether it be a cell phone or a tv or a computer screen. You feel empty without having a phone in your hand or feel alone when your tv isn’t on.
In today’s world, many people believe that technology’s sole purpose is to draw young people away from the real world and reality. Just because you do not realize it, it does not mean it is not happening. If you think back to when you were younger, was technology the same as today? However, technology is forever changing and improving. It affects everyone, not just the young group of people. Technology changes our brains, souls, and our very being. Once technology sucks you into the whole of its essence, you will have a hard time changing your life style.
But it was mainly the little things of technology that they miss, the little things in their normal day routine that they missed. “An incomplete list: No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities.” (. St. John Mandel’s) People don’t take things for granted till they lose it. Technology clearly serves an important part in our society; most people cannot even be without their cellphones for at most 5
We rely on technology for everything in our lives today. It is hard for us to be more than ten steps away from our phone. Dependence on technology is even evident in Fahrenheit 451. In the novel, the TV is everything to some people. It becomes their friend their family and even their life. They even have technology that butters their toast and medical procedures. We use technology everyday whether it is our phone, laptop, or ipod. We use them every single day all day long. If something was not to work for a single day our society would crash with the absence of technology.
When you think of New York, most people imagine the great sky scrappers, the beautiful lights at night, The New York Yankees, and of course hectic traffic. New York City and its citizens have always demonstrated a toughness and grit that have historically defined the city and those who live. Often times, New Yorkers have been considered the bully, rude, and obnoxious type. Of course there are some unfriendly New Yorkers, but the city and is more than that. Without some of those obnoxious yelling taxi drivers, New York would not be New York. People often imagine the bad or more crazy part of New Yorkers rather than the good. Humans tend to do that in most situations. The frantic way of living in constant motion is what makes New York great.
Small town people are so used to everything being so far apart that going into a city may make them feel crowded or claustrophobic. A good thing about small towns are the roads, the roads in city are crammed with cars and tight spaces that you have to fit your car in, but in small town vehicular space is very abundant. There are more cons than pros with small towns though, because the people in them are behind with the world. The worst thing about living in a small town is that a lot of people are closed minded, the quote “Open your mind before your mouth” is implied here. As previously stated people in small towns really have an issue with change and if anything is threatened to be changed they protest like savages.
In the modern day, we use technology to every benefit we can and I am not ashamed of that; my opinion on the use of technology (specifically computers) is that in quantities of moderation, technology can exponentially expand the growth of our civilization. For my second cultural object, I chose my home computer because I can spend upwards of hours upon it each day, primarily doing work or visiting recreational, social websites and games. The renowned scientist Carl Sagan once said, “We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.” This quotation blatantly applies to modern day society, where it is nearly impossible to communicate with people without an email or cell phone. The laptop is also an immense part of my culture regarding schoolwork, where I need the laptop to access the websites teachers use. With so many hours per day enveloped the laptop, it has grown to be a large part of my daily routine and culture overall.
Some have made attempts to escape from the technological world and to go back to a time in which things were not enhanced by it, to get the natural experience. As we become more and more adapted to being able to communicate by the use of machines, the face to face experience will fade as something of the past. Which as Nye shows in this chapter that there may be an increase of cyber-hermits and electronic hermits, as we disengage from the real world. Martin Heidegger argued that “as technological rationality becomes dominant, people begin to perceive all of nature as a “standing reserve” of raw materials awaiting use” (p.199). As each generation comes along, they view a lot of the technologies that were remarkable to earlier generations, as just being normal to
There is something about cities, that makes one feel so insignificant like there is a whole system of things bigger than you. They make outsiders feel that it is somewhat of a privilege to be able to even observe the secret, yet fast-paced, operations that go on. Whoever you are, wherever you’re from, it doesn’t matter to the people there. They only see your exterior.
In this era we are a technology advanced society, being only 22 years old I have seen many technological advances. Growing up I had access to T.V., when I was younger I remember going to my grandparents’ house and they had back and white T.V. When I hit middle school I given my first cell phone it was a flip phone that had no games on it. In my house we had the big box T.V. with a VCR box and the huge computer with the big monitor; we not call it the dinosaur computer because it’s so outdated. As an adult I have a touch screen phone with access to social media, games, etc., I also have a flat screen T.V. and laptop. Regularly, I use my phone and laptop it’s practically become my life, sometimes I’m glued to the screen. I believe I’m pretty comfortable with technology; I have a basic understanding of how it works. I do like trying to understand new
The city that I came from has more than 4.9 millions population. It’s been a while for me to adjusted into this small town with 10,000 people. Through the two years of American high school experience, I realized that I’m a city person and the city is where I belong to. It is harsh for someone who grow up in city all the sudden there are no noise, no traffic, not even people on the street. I felt disconnected with the living world. Back to my city, while I handed my egg pancake to an old cripple man who’s looking for something to eat from the trash can on the street, he can’t stopped saying thank you. So did I. How lucky am I on the way to my future.
Despite a resident in a ‘big city’ in and of itself, I really want to leave Atlanta and move to New York City, New York. Yes, it’s massively expensive but I really enjoyed the energy I felt the last time I was in the city and want to live in it again. New York City is a teeming mass of art, technology and anonymity that just draws me in and wish to be a part of it as much as I can. It is quite odd to associate being anonymous with a city with more people per square inch than most cities in the US can handle on a good day but with the mass comes this ability to blend in with a crowd. Even if you stood out, there are others there standing out in exactly the same way. Plus the city-wide free wifi is nothing to sneeze at.
They get pleasure from media and keep on communications anyplace they need with the new gadgets out there to them