Is Digital Media Bad for Us?

Today, the digital world is at its peak. Sixty years ago, the far off vision of the 21^st century was a world of computers that could fit in your hand, tiny machines inside your heart that kept it pumping blood, and super jets that could fly from New York City to Paris in three hours. Since then the digital age has allowed us to do this and so much more and people have a right to be scared as technology becomes fully integrated in daily life of 2011. Today, due to the internet and cordless phones, people are connected to one another at all hours of every day, removing a 'user's sense of self. That is to say, those who do associate with this digital nation project an image of themselves through a barrier of technology, leaving that ideal image that they've created. But is our physical and mental integration anything to be frightened of? Technology breeding new technology has changed the way we interact with our peers, allowed us to fabricate individualism, and created a digital shield of protection.

Thanks to the advances made in technology in the past decade, humans are globally connected, which is something we've aspired to do for years. At the click of a mouse, we can see our loved ones faces across an ocean from our living rooms through the power of Skype.

It's become evident that humans have developed a reliance on all that is digital, but whether or not this is a bad thing is debatable. I myself partook in a digital fast that denied me access to my cell phone or internet and four days yielded not a single urge although I am an avid internet user regularly.. One popular opinion on this issue is that children brought up on technology are not learning how to read properly using conventional methods. That children's attention spans are being pressured by technology to be more disjointed, but a different method of learning is not necessarily less effective. Technology is designed, as mentioned before, to make our lives easier and only long term data will prove whether children are learning less or more from using computers rather than books. Technology is an vehicle for science and global communication and that education is only a byproduct and thus, its hard to say whether it should be implemented as a full on replacement to textbooks and binders. That being said, technology, especially the internet has provided us with the greatest research tool we could possibly need. “It was around this time that I started hearing talk of something called the internet, a mysterious 'network of networks' that promised, according to people in the know, to 'change everything'” (Carr, 14) The World Wide Web. 5 million terabytes of data at the click of a mouse. Who could be skeptical about that?

Ashton Kusher said, “Whether you like it or not, the digital age has produced a new format for modern romance, and natural selection may be favoring the quick-thumbed quip peddler over the confident, ice-breaking alpha male” This implies that with technology, a time has finally arrived where natural selection does not choose the strong over the weak, where all humans on a digital plane are equal. At last, humans can part from the barbaric survival of the fittest genome as technology levels the playing field. This is powerful. This means that technology is actually shaping the way we think, the way we interact with others and the way we interpret information. As we live the feeling of progression is almost tangible, but of course, we are only just adjusting. A time will come when our entire bodies are completely immersed in machinery, but until then, technology is a vehicle for communication and information. Imagine you are riding a bus, as soon as you step on, you start to evaluate everyone else on the bus looking at their clothes, jewelry, etc. At the same time you appear as you want to appear, you'll walk straighter, you either smile or won't, you'll have one ipod earbud casually flung over one shoulder to exude an air of carefreeness. This is the image you put out to the world, and likewise, what you are seeing of those that are conscious of you is the image they've put out. The internet makes this infinitely easier. Your 'About Me' section on Facebook (at 500 million users) is carefully worded to send out an ideal of yourself that you want others to see. Every comment you post can be phrased to make you sound any way you want, eliminating the spontaneity of casual conversation. Technology has come to point where we are isolated even when we are connected, but this is only the very beginning. Already programs like Skype have broken down this barricade and with the rapid growth in technology, 'users' existing on digital planes will begin to more closely represent their living counterparts.

We are at the pinnacle of something huge, executing ideas that have been in motion since early this century, thanks to the digital age. We have made great strides in discovering the science behind why we all exist and our place in the universe. Thanks to science, rational thinking has shrunk creationist numbers worldwide as different space agencies begin the exploration of all the other floating rocks in our galaxy. Technology is what has taken us there and back safely. It is what warns us of an earthquake or an eruption. It has created an interconnectedness of people and the quality of life where there is technology, is better than its ever been. People are behind the times, technology is inevitable, although this is a debate that will rage on with every groundbreaking creation. There is no escaping people like Nicholas Carr and the writers of Digital Media, in fact, the very same skeptics are all around us every day. The amount of progress that can be made in the lifetime of a single person, especially nearing the end of that person's life are undoubtably going to leave them bitter, but that's just human nature. The Youth are waiting patiently for what comes next.