ENGL assignment Introduction to Me :)

Technology and I have a love hate relationship; I love it when it works, hate it when it doesn't. Murphy's Law (that anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible moment) often seems to be manifest when I really need technology to work for me. But more often I am entirely impressed at the myriad of technological uses and innovations that mankind has developed, implemented, and generally adopted worldwide. Most often I tend to glean the now less interesting older models. Coming from a fairly poor family I tend to be two or three generations behind the current technological advances, in some cases, far behind. I did not learn how to text with a cell phone until my late teens and did not own my own cell phone until my early twenties. This has made for some jokes at my expense from those of my friends who are putting down payments for the newest cell phone or other gadget that has yet to even be released to the public. While I have not been so privileged as some in this age of technology, I have been impressed by the incredible effect one simple innovation can have on society as a whole. Throughout my life I can distinctly see the changes that occurred over time. Things changed in look and design, in quality and durability, and in effectiveness. I will compare one outing I had with my family in a crowded amusement park. We made plans early in the day who would be buddies with whom, where and when different groups of my family would meet up. As you can imagine, this made for some excitement when certain groups neglected to arrive at the predetermined locations on time. We would decide how long we would wait before sending someone to go looking for the lost group. All in all this often put a damper on our outings. Our outdoor activities changed when my family finally began to adopt some of the cheaper cell phones and cell plans. We discovered how easy it was to coordinate many small groups over a large area. This significantly lowered the stress level of my parents. There was a tradeoff however. While they less often had to worry about lost kids, my parents now had to worry about making sure that cell phones were charged, that extra batteries were handy, that texting and call minutes were paid for, and implementing cell phone rules for us kids. My parents gladly chose these simple tasks over a higher likelihood of losing children in a crowd, but I’ve noticed in many of my peers that they simply get bogged down in technology. The sheer amount of time spent on use, upkeep and update for all their myriad of gadgets. I mean, how do you have time to use all this stuff? And at such an astronomical price brand new I can see why someone would feel badly for not using their nearly $300+ IPod Touch. It’s no wonder that you would feel obligated to fill its potential 32 GB storage with as many apps as you can find.

My family has moved several times over the years and I have lived in three states and two countries. I remember trying to “keep in touch” with all of my friends via e-mail. The number of e-mail conversations I was attempting to maintain was no longer as fun as it had been. In fact it had become an arduous chore. The wait for a reply was often surprisingly long in some cases. I finally broke down and threw out my resolve never to open a Facebook account. I had over 50 confirmed additions to my friends list over the first 24 hours of opening my account on Facebook; over the next week I had over 200. After almost two years of activity I have gleaned over 500 friends and some 200 acquaintances totaling a good 700 connections. This is absolutely ridiculous. I thought I was making it easier on myself by switching to Facebook. Still, I’m not complaining so much as I am stating the absolute awesome power that we now possess as human beings to adopt new technology. I wonder sometimes if people are actually physically addicted to the chase of “the newest fad” in technology. I can only imagine what the future holds for my children.