Technology Has Taken Over My Life!
July 5th 2008 11:41
Tonight, as I was surfing the web looking for something to write about, I came across an article about how Time-Warner has begun to initiate bandwidth caps on their cable internet users. Now, before tell you what happened, I want to go point out that this will have no affect on me whatsoever because I’m not a Time-Warner customer and I use DSL (Also, I don’t think I consume near enough bandwidth to constitute a cap). But regardless of those factors, a tiny inkling of panic still rose up from the bowels of my technology-reliant soul. “Oh NO! They’re cuttin’ me OFF!” Eventually though, I regained my common sense and the panic subsided. But this got me thinking. What if all of the technology that so many of us have allowed to be ingrained in our daily lives was suddenly in limited supply, or worse, disappeared completely?
Now, I know what most of you are thinking. “This guy couldn’t find anything worthwhile to write about so instead chose to bore us with a hair-brained, nearly impossible scenario that doesn’t matter in the least.” Well, you’re right. But think of it. No iPods, laptops, cell phones, Playstations, X-Box 360’s, PC’s, internet, HDTV, DVD’s, Blu-Ray’s, CD’s… Now I don’t want to get too crazy, so let’s not take it clear back to the Stone Age. But imagine if the only TV in the house was on an antenna, if all we had for music was LP’s and cassette tape, if all the phones had cords, let’s say, 1980. (Wow, how the world has changed in 28 years.)
Now, we all know we wouldn’t die, (Hell, it would probably be good for most of us) but it certainly would change the way we do things. There’s not a whole lot that most of us do in our daily lives that hasn’t changed in 30 years. I wouldn’t have my iHome to wake me up each day. No reason to check blog hits or e-mail, or even a way to do it. No HDTV to watch while eating breakfast. No iPod dock to plug my non-existent iPod into to listen to music while I showered. No XM Radio for the commute to work. No Homestar Runner or Tekzilla or Wine Library TV to entertain me once I got there. (I do love to read though, so that’ll always be there, unless we descend all the way to a Fahrenheit 451-esque world.)
The true point of this rambling is simply this. When that tiny inkling of panic rose up after reading that article, I realized how much I’ve allowed myself to become a slave to this wonderful technology. Now, I’m not planning on becoming a monk or anything, or even changing the way I live my life, but I think it’s important for every tech loving soul out there to just take a moment every once in a while, breath deep, and realize that yes, we could live without this. Let’s not take it for granted, and most of all, let’s not let it take over our lives.
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