lab+4

I personally found Sherry Turkle's response to the questions that were asked, was impressive, and very appropriate in regards to technology and how we use it. I often sit and wonder how we have become so technologically dependent in such a short period of time. I remember, as I was a kid my parents always said the word "internet". I didn't pay much attention to what it was. in fact, i had no idea what it was. We were in Sudan, a third world country, with horrible connection; so my parent's never really introduced me to it either. We left Sudan when i was six, and by the age of seven i started to slowly use the internet. The introduction to MSN was my first step to the internet addiction. It was so exciting, specially because I didn't have a cellphone at that age.So, being able to chat with 4 different friends at the same time was something new. Now, we have institutions that make it difficult to actually survive without the internet. We have classes, that force us to go online and submit our assignments there. We have become so dependent that life has become almost impossible without internet.And this is where Ms. Turkle's opinion fits perfectly. Its not that I'm against us being technologically advances, but we can't forget that at one point, these technologies didn't exist. So the question becomes "how has this taken over completely, and how long will this go on for?

Nevertheless, despite the fact that our society makes it almost impossible for us to boycott certain technologies, we also play a role in this dependency. For the most part, i believe that our addictions to these things are psychological. For instance if you leave your house today, and realize 15 minutes later that you forgot your cellphone at home, theres an 80% chance that you will turn around to go grab it. And it you don't then you tend to feel lost for the rest of the day. I've known people that have said to me "I can't live without my phone". In fact, I, myself, could not in a million years imagine myself without a cellphone. It seems to be the perfect solution for emergency situations. However, I lost my phone back in November, and did not feel the need to purchase a new one. It was difficult to cope without a phone at first, but now, I have no intention of purchasing one and I've been coping fine. I guess what I'm trying to say is; when we hypothetically think about living without technology, we believe it might be the worst thing that could happen to us, but once we are actually in the situation, it really isn't all that bad.