One look around us today is enough to say that we are ruled by technology. The dizzying array of gadgets and gizmos leave me dumbstruck, and I've always felt a little ignorant when it came to comprehending the latest gadget.
Just a few years ago, having a mobile phone was a luxury. But now everyone's got to have one of those, right from the rickshawwallah to my little neighbour studying in Std I, each one showing off their latest contraption.
With each passing day and with each technological breakthrough man continues to advance forward with the notion of making life easier. Dave Barry, an American writer and humorist, once said, “One day soon the Gillette Company will announce the development of a razor that, thanks to a computer microchip, can actually travel ahead in time and shave beard hairs that don't even exist yet”.
Necessity
We depend so much on our gadgets that we can't survive without them now. Someone once asked me, “What are the two things you can't live without?” My mobile phone topped the list followed by my laptop coming in a close second. Unfortunately, she apparently expected an answer such as air, food or shelter, and I ended up taking those basic necessities for granted. Yes, we take for granted everything around us, thus becoming slaves to technology.
No doubt it makes life easier, but it becomes such an integral part of your life and your life revolves completely around it and taking it away would only end in with a sense of being helpless.
So, turn off these digital distractions for a while and go out and do something existentially appropriate instead. Your iPad can wait…
CANDICE MACEDO, I Year, M.Sc. Electronic Media, Anna University
