Technology Keeps Us Connected Analysis

As director Steven Spielberg once said, “Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone”. Illustrating the repercussions of increased technological input, Spielberg highlights the different pros and cons to owning new tech; it both helps us to stay connected and lose focus of our end goals in life. Spielberg sheds light to one one of the more controversial questions concerning society today: does technology unite us, or divide us? Despite all potential negatives, technology is

In her article Technology Keeps Us Connected, author Carrie Steinweg proclaims that, “...Technology has put the world at our finger­tips. We are no longer limited by funds or resources. Our ideas of com­munity, the places where each one of us belong, are no longer bound by where we live” (Steinweg). And this, in all respects, is true: technology, in whatever form has allowed humans to transcend any physical obstacle, taking people to the depths of the Earth, across the world, and even to the heights above it. This illustration also perfectly summarizes how technology has affected us in a more intimate level: we allow it to take us to the depths of becoming anti-social, but also to new heights of communication with those who were lost in touch due to time and space. From a more

Steinweg mirrors that sentiment when she proclaims, “I do not doubt our use of technol­ogy has flaws. But I think that if we choose to use technology to increase our awareness of the world and stay connected, rather than to feed into our laziness, then the benefits outweigh the cost” (Steinweg). A more realistic stance on usage in general, Steinweg proves how anything can be misused and technology is one of those things. However, those other facilities are not taken away from society, they are just limited or controlled more consciously in a way that does not “feed into our laziness”. Citing misuse by select individuals as a reason to not open society up to endless possibilities with the use of connective technology is a form of reasoning as flawed as the idea of taking away food from society because people choose to make themselves unhealthy by their own malpractice. Moreover, this idea of using technology correctly and the benefits outweighing the costs is further developed by blog author Kathy Cassidy. In her post, The Use and Abuse of Technology in the Classroom, she divulges how, “Technology should not just allow us to do things in a more engaging way; it should allow us to do new things that we thought were not possible. It is those new things that are the real value