Technology

So my husband's computer crashed yesterday. It will not turn on and I can't help but think of all the things that we may have just lost - pictures, documents, music, basically the last five years of his work. I am hoping that my tech savvy husband and brother will be able to salvage the hard drive. The whole situation just sucks right now, but I can't help but thing about our dependence on electronics and technology.

There is no doubt that advances in technology have made the world a much better place that it was two hundred years ago. But we as a society have gotten so accustomed to having technology there to do the hard work that I wonder if we can ever survive without it. It's hard to believe that there was a time that I didn't have a cell phone. It's hard to even think about the first cell phone I had, with its pea green screen, three games and functionality that was limited to calls and texting. Now I have a Window's smart phone so I can call, text, email, video call, check on my blogs and shop no matter where I am.

Think about your house, and your kitchen in particular. How wonderful is to have your food ready to eat with a few beeps of the microwave buttons. What about the convenience of that electric or gas stove? Can you imagine having to build a fire in your stove three times a day to cook? Or how about waiting for the man to bring you a big block of ice for your ice box so you can try to keep food from spoiling for a day or two.

There was a time when being a house wife really was a full time job. I think about my husband's 92 year old grandmother and how difficult it must have been for her to keep a house running with six kids and the modest income of farmer to support them. Women had to know how to cook, sew, clean, mend, and do all those things we don't have to worry about today. If something breaks, today we throw it away and get a new one. How many men out there really know how to fix things anymore? If an appliance breaks down, can the man of the house fix it?

And we are teaching our younger generation to be even more lazy than we are. Instead of putting them on a sports team, we buy them a video game. Instead of encouraging them to understand how to make things work, we show that if something doesn't work you toss it. If you ever get the chance, find an antique store that carries old magazines from about 70-100 years ago. Look for the one geared to boys, teenage and younger. You will find instructions on building things for kids to play with, everything from simple games up to little go karts with small engines in them. That is what kids did for fun - scrounge around their home and neighborhood looking for parts to build things. Today, these kids are generally bullied because they are interested in building technology.

While technology has helped society in so many ways, we have also developed a dependence on it that may ultimately do more harm than good. If we do not know how to survive without the aid of electronics, what would happen to us if a solar flare takes out even some of our satellites. I'm not suggesting that we need to prepare for an imminent doomsday or that we need to be survivalists that can live on twigs and berries. What I am saying is that we need to start looking at our dependence on  a technology structure that is more delicate than we want to admit. I know my family will be okay because we know how to work hard and make things for ourselves - but what about the people you know?