All Hail Skynet

All Hail Skynet

Technology has made us dependent of it when it comes to learning new ways to think for ourselves. Humanity is becoming more feeble minded after each use of the internet. Technology does has its benefits. It has made our lives much easier with new phones that are similar to computers and cars that can break to ensure the driver doesn’t get into an accident. However, each generation that comes into this new world will become dependent on technology. It’s to the point that a thirty-five year old will need to pick up a calculator to see if two plus two does equal four. Writers such as, Nicholas Carr from The Atlantic who wrote “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and Tim Wu who wrote “As technology gets better, will society get worse?”, write about how humanity is more dependent on technology than ever before. Technology is a cancer that eats away humanities brains. This may be the era of technology, but it is also the era of humanities downfall.  

Some people find it difficult to either pick up a book and start reading or begin doing their homework. The reason because of this is because most people want to be stuck watching television or texting their friends. Carr explains how even reading a few paragraphs is a struggle when he says, “ Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it”(Carr 2). Humanity is more interested in finding out the latest trend Twitter, because it’s much easier to read a two sentence post than a two page paper. It’s possible than most people won’t even read this two page paper. The readers will probably skim it.

Kids now a days pay more attention to the latest technological trend than their own lives. Kids use to love texting on their phones. Today kids use different ways of communicating with their peers with other applications such as “Instagram”, “Snapchat”, or “Facebook Messenger”. Even if a person has a friends number on their phone, they will often use “Facebook Messenger” as another way to interact with their friends. Kids also worry about their peers responding to their message that it drives them crazy. Maryam Abolfazli who is a writer in Washington says, “The three dots shown while someone is drafting a message is quite possibly the most important source of eternal hope and ultimate letdown in our daily lives”(Abolfazli 1). Each generation that comes to this world will soon wonder what a number two pencil is because they will either use the latest mechanical pen or a pen they can write with their tablets.

As technology evolves, humanity will soon forget how to survive. Most people now a days can tie a fisherman's knot without having to “Google it”.  It makes sense that the older generation looks down upon each new generation because they fear that the new generation will have no survival skills. Wu writes about how only the strong survive when he says, “Only those prepared to face hardship and make sacrifices could survive.”(Wu 2). Wu also states, “The problem with technological evolution is that it is under our control and, unfortunately, we don’t always make the best decisions”(Wu 3). For example, people often have trouble chosen a new phone and with all the new applications that make it difficult to choose the right phone. It’s great that humanity has technology that can help it shape the future, but humanity also needs to learn to adapt if that technology is ever taken from them.

Technology does has its benefits, but it also has its disadvantages. It makes each generation more independent that no child will be able to think for themselves. We look at the old technology and laugh because we have better technology such as ultra high definition flat-screen televisions that can also be three-dimensional that will soon make the next generation wonder what in the world is a movie theater. The technology that we have today will also become obsolete one day. As technology progresses, humanity will see paper as a handkerchief and wipe their pizza stains with The New York Times.