Blog Two

Over the past century, technology has blossomed and grown considerably at a rather rapid rate. At the beginning of the 20^th century not many homes had electricity, kitchen appliances were not yet popular among the modern family and most forms of entertainment were live. It was not until the mid 1900’s that television, the radio, appliances such as the microwave or vacuum cleaner, and the telephone flooded into economy. Ever since then, technology has only continued to advance, leading the human race from one form of entertainment to the next. Music, movies, books; all of these things can now be accessed without having the actual thing. In the article “Our Media, Ourselves: Are We Headed for a Matrix?” by Bob Mondello, the author argues that people fear losing themselves as technology replaces the actual objects, that this fear is the product of one’s experiences with technology, and that we are heading towards a world of isolation. He uses the movie “The Matrix” and the short story, “The Machine Stops” by E.M Forster to support this claim. “Once you've felt the comfort of society,” Mondello writes, “you worry about losing it. So to remind yourself of how you're connected, you gather things around. And you cling to them, not so you won't lose them, or lose what makes you you, but so you won't lose the connections they represent. The fear is of emptiness — but of emptiness inside us, not of empty rooms.” Although Mondello backs his claim up with common sense and other writings, he fails to look at the other possibilities present. He does not consider any other reason at to why someone may trade in CD’s for an iPod, or books for a Kindle, and of course, vise versa. Perhaps people are not clinging to objects for security, but simply because they like the smell of the pages of an old book or enjoy having something to share with their guest. And on the other hand, there are those who tend to want nothing to do with the “real” thing, like books and movies, and would much rather use the technology available to them. Abandoning the old for the new does not necessarily mean that these people are trying to isolate themselves, though. Although technology does tend to consume much of people’s time and draws them away from others, the reality is that technology makes things much simpler. People no longer have to deal with a mess of clutter or rummage through their belongings just to find an old CD, because with technology, all of that can be theirs in the click of a button. Also, Mondello argues that these physical objects are what make people unique and give character to individuals. But rather than defining people by their possessions, shouldn’t they be defined by their preferences, their actions towards others, and their ideas? It is these things that make people humans; emotions, thoughts, opinions, ideas, and the bonds that are made between fellow human beings throughout life. In “The Machine Stops” Forster writes, “The sin against the body- it was for that they wept in chief; the centuries of wrong against the muscles and the nerves, and those five portals by which we can alone apprehend-glozing it over with talk of evolution, until the body was white pap, the home of ideas as colorless, last sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped stars.” Yes, it would be sad it these things were to occur due to technology, but as long as humanity has an understanding of what really defines them, the idea of a world like one in “the Matrix” is highly unlikely, because people depend upon one another for survival.