Back in the day, television was considered the climax of technology. Today, our society has come to a point where technology that we could never have imagined 20 years ago is being invented, all the time. Think about how much we all depend on technological products. Think about how there always is an easier way to do something with the aid of technology. Think about all the different times you use technology each day. Think about how advanced in terms of technology we are.

Try to picture what could even be thought of being invented 50 years from now. Amazing right? Now pretend all of that went away. Pretend technology ceased to exist. It seems horrible, but really, when you give it some thought you realize that since it’s been done before, why can’t it be done now? If 20 years ago we didn’t have things called “iPods” or “cell phones,” why can’t we just throw them all away? Why do we need these things so badly? The answer is: we, as the major countries of the world, have installed technology so vastly into our everyday lives, never thinking about what might happen if it went away, that if one day our iPods and our cell phones and our hybrid cars stopped working, all of us would suffer, for better and for worse. People shouldn’t be so dependent on technology. People should not live their lives around technology. Sure, technology helps everyone out to some degree, but technology can also become an addiction, an addiction that we cannot stop.

In 50 years from now, when technology is even more advanced than it is now, imagine how much more we will be addicted to technology. No one is saying technology should be stopped entirely, because frankly, technology does save us time, and technology does help us for the better. All that should be observed is that technology should be controlled in a livable non-life changing way.

It’s always fun to use technology, however, if becoming dependent is evident, then other needs such as good health, exercise, sleep time, education, and even things such as family or friends are sacrificed (StraightUp). Life goes by fast, with many opportunities that should be given to everyone. Technology only speeds it all up, forcing you to wave at them as they pass by, without getting a chance to try doing it with your own two hands, and accomplishing something without the use of unnecessary technological products.

The average teenager living in a modernized world has a cell phone for which he/she uses every day in order to keep in touch with all of his/her friends every minute, all the time (Insurance Information Institute). The last generation didn’t have cell phones when they were kids. Even their parents didn’t have cell phones. A statistic shows that 17 years ago, in 1990, when cell phones first started to come out, approximately 4.3 million people subscribed to cell phone companies (Insurance Information Institute). Now, in the year 2007, about 231 million people have cell phones (Insurance Information Institute). There are only about 300 million people living in the United States. Only about 70 million people in the United States do not have cell phones. Cell phones have become a must-have in our lives (Insurance Information Institute). It’s usual for a teenager to be walking around chattering away on their own cell phone.

In the last generation, when teens were bored and wanted to do something they would play outside, play sports, and basically do something physical (StraightUp). Nowadays, when teenagers claim that they are finished with their homework and have nothing to do, they spend the rest of their day calling up all their friends and talking to them until it’s time for bed. Talking with friends is not bad in any way; nevertheless, kids could be doing something with them, something physical and entertaining at the same time. At least they could exercise while having fun with their friends, instead of just sitting on the couch or lying down on the bed with the phone raised up to your ear for hours and hours. Technology has made us lazy. It has made everything so easy, that we have taken full advantage of it and forget that we’re just wasting our time in the end (straight up).

Right now, people from the next generation are in school, growing up, about to be released into the world. They’re going to need jobs in order to support themselves and their families. What might they want to pursue? Actor, computer engineering, writer, doctor, musician, etc. Technology could even replace a friend. A Japanese robot called Wakamuru can “house sit,” interact with other people, and not surprisingly tell news of what’s happening around the world with updates from the Internet (Runyan 1). Moreover, wouldn’t they want to take on their job and learn as they go, instead of technology doing the job for them? They would want to supply all of their own efforts in creating or doing whatever it is that they are required to do. Basically, they don’t want technology doing all the work (Runyan 1). Now, and the coming years, technology will have taken a large percent in human functions (Runyan 1). People will not be expected to do even half the amount of work that technology will do. People might not even be needed whatsoever. Take, for example, an actor. Many movies have begun using a movie effect called CGI, or computer generated graphics (Runyan 1). Actors can sit aside and wait as movie directors and producers sit on their computers, creating a part of a movie all without the use of an actual actor (Runyan 1).

Another example could be a writer. Some MIT graduates got their paper accepted into the World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (Runyan 1). The paper was written only by a computer-generated “context-free” program, with absolutely no help from the actual humans that created the program (Runyan 1). In 1993, a person by the name of Scott French spent $50,000 in order to purchase an artificial intelligence so that he could program it to write a bestselling romance novel (Runyan 2). He got what he wanted, and the book turned out to sell 15,000 copies in the first printing; the book being 70,000 words long (Runyan 2). Interestingly, the book turned out to be pretty good. Jobs are being taken over by machines. They don’t appeal as much to people as much as they did a decade or two ago. More technology equals less people. Less people equals less expense on salaries. People need to deduce that there always is a possibility that they could get fired from a job and replaced with a computer or machine. The machine would produce better results because a machine never gets tired, but the person fired would be without a job. What is more important?

The most important and most used piece of technology in the world is the internet (Jesdanun 4). The internet is used all the time, helping people access information in a matter of seconds, enabling people to keep in touch with people for free from one side of the globe to the other with the click of a mouse, and even being a storefront for people who make a living having a home business, such as eBay. These things are not bad at all; nevertheless there are harmful and dangerous things about the internet as well. People turn to the internet for all their needs. They turn to it for almost everything that pops into their mind, and there is always going to be something on the internet that fuels that need. They spend so much time sitting in front of their computer, staring at the screen, clicking away mindlessly from internet page to page. They watch videos, they read blogs, they make blogs, they instant message, they post photos, they look at photos, they type papers, they read recipes, buy merchandise, sell merchandise, and countless of other things. These things seem like a lot of things, but they don’t take any effort at all. They all take a few strokes on the keyboard and a few clicks of the mouse. It is all another way to addiction; addiction to the internet and what it could do, and sacrificing things that they really need. What would happen if the internet all shut down? Could people even believe that it could happen? In fact, it could. Recently, the founders and creators of the internet about 20 years ago have started to talk about scrapping the internet and what it is and creating a whole new one (Jesdanun 4). A whole new internet! Now it seems much more artificial. The internet is amazingly more vulnerable than it looks (Jesdanun 4).

People pride themselves with their material possessions. They pride themselves for having as many technological products as they could afford, and they boast about them to others (StraightUp). Still, is there really anything to boast about? All that proves from having the latest technology is that you are living in affluence, and you have the means necessary to buy as many technological products that even only somewhat catches your eye. Nonetheless, that’s the problem itself. No matter what, even if people cannot afford it, they still waste the majority of their money on technological products. They are the most expensive type of material good. After they see themselves in debt, they regret that they bought as much as they wanted to. Why are people so obsessed with technology? They don’t worry about preserving their money, and they think that every technological product will save them time in some way, or make it easier for them in some way do so something that really doesn’t even take that long in the first place. Cooking, cleaning, working, entertaining, transporting…the list goes on. There are so many different ways technology can be put to use, and people always want to try using it for everything. Religion also comes into play here. Is religion as enforced and emphasized upon our society as much as it was 50 to 100 years ago? People have found no meaning for religion. The need for God is eclipsed or considered meaningless because the areas of health, wealth, and happiness are now dominated by human creations (Thomas 2). Technology affects all areas of our lives, including ones that people never realize.

Simplicity is being destroyed. Technology destroys the opportunity to learn or try something yourself (StraightUp). Technology wastes time, for when people try using it to accomplish something and the technology fails, they spend more time trying to fix the piece of technology rather than trying to get what they wanted to achieve in the first place. Technology ruins an “actual” feeling of accomplishment. In a project that has been created technology-free, the results show that more energy was put into the project than if it was created with the aid of technology. Productivity is increased with the use of technology, but the thing is, its so easy to use it in order to make something. It shouldn’t be so easy. It should be hard in order to craft something, so that a person can be educated upon what he/she is doing and use that in a different time or different situation. People would be so much more independent if there was no technology in the world. They would understand that life is all about survival, and there wouldn’t be anything to waste money on. Even so, in reality technology should be in our lives, it shouldn’t be completely gone.

Technology does help us, but only so much. The only problem is that it should be less focused on by people. It should be the lesser part of our lives rather than the greater part. We would have smarter people living in our world. We would have less lonely people in the world, less of a gap between the rich people in our world and the poor people in our world. People would be more equal to one another.

Whereas technology helps us in many ways, it also harms us in many ways. We don’t need so much technology and we don’t need it all the time. Technology is not as essential to our lives as it is portrayed. When stuck in a dilemma, people should not think of a solution using technology; the “easy way out.” They should learn from their problem and think of a solution using actual labor. Life wouldn’t be so terrible if technology wasn’t taken to the extremes that they are taken to right now by everyone. Life would be better. Life would be more spontaneous, with us using our own skills and building upon them at the same time instead of using the skills of a computer. We don’t need technology as much as we seem to. Lessen the amount of time you spend with technology; get rid of your addiction. Get technology out of our jobs. Don’t let technology functions that humans have always been meant to do. More technology only means more money for the manager and less money for the employees. Accept that technology should be controlled, and technology in your body should be released. Forget about the T.V., or the video games, or the iPods, the cell phones, and try learning how to play an instrument or a new sport. Have fun and go out with different people.

Make new friends, embrace the amount of time you will have if you just forget about technology even just a little bit. The world would be more efficient, more educated, if we controlled technology, and technology didn’t control us.