Is Technology a Part of Us?
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By Dana Allen ©2012
My anthropology professors told me technology and language are what make us human. Yes, there are animals that use simple tools, but only humans have diverged from simple tools and created the incredible technologies we use today. When I think about how technology has changed my life, if it made it better or made it worse, I can only think how it has molded my life. Like every generation before me, as I grew up, so did the technologies around me changing the way I experienced the world.
I was a C-section baby. Had this surgical technology not been around, neither would my mother and I. From my first breath, my life was dependent on technology. As a child of the 80s in Silicon Valley, I was in the heart of the high tech world. My generation always had color TV and VCRs, but I do remember going to friends' houses without personal computers. The only reason I grew up with one was because my mother had an accounting program for the family business on it. I never played many video games, but Mario did teach me how to type correctly at around 70 WPM and 98% accuracy: a skill that became indispensable to me later on in life as my career became internet based.
Fast forward to 8th grade when the internet was developing at lightning speed. Well, I had still dial-up so it took a bit longer. At a time when I needed to access information for school projects, information was becoming available in mass quantities on the web. Come college, I can count my lucky stars I was able to access the library from home, late at night with my term paper due the next morning. By then we switched to a Cable connection; how did I live with dial-up? I loved taking my laptop on vacations as many hotels now offered internet access. I could look up restaurants and things to do on the internet, get the directions and experience something I would have never found on my own! When the memory card on my digital camera was full, I could upload the photos to my computer to make room for more photos. My laptop and the internet were also indispensable.
It took me a while to get on the Smartphone craze. I had a cell phone but what more does a phone need to do than make and receive calls? Many people around the world don't even have a phone! Then I caved. After college I bought myself an iPhone. My world was once again opened up! I no longer needed to take my laptop on vacations as my iPhone did the same thing and was much smaller to carry. I didn't even need a digital camera anymore, it took photos and could upload them to social networking websites so my friends could see them. My iPhone was indispensable, or so I thought before I got my Galaxy S2. What's next?
When I hear about new technologies that invade our privacy or kill thousands, I wonder if too much technology can be a bad thing. Then I remember how much I enjoy watching documentaries of the Amazon on a HDTV. I can never say if my life would be better or worse without these technologies as I know nothing else. I believe each new development comes with a double edge sword and it is up to us on how we use them because whether we like it or not, technology is a part of us as humans.
Dana Allen lives in the Bay Area and co-runs the Good-Earth Store, an online retail specializing in health. She has a BA in Anthropology from San Jose State University.
I was a C-section baby. Had this surgical technology not been around, neither would my mother and I. From my first breath, my life was dependent on technology. As a child of the 80s in Silicon Valley, I was in the heart of the high tech world. My generation always had color TV and VCRs, but I do remember going to friends' houses without personal computers. The only reason I grew up with one was because my mother had an accounting program for the family business on it. I never played many video games, but Mario did teach me how to type correctly at around 70 WPM and 98% accuracy: a skill that became indispensable to me later on in life as my career became internet based.
Fast forward to 8th grade when the internet was developing at lightning speed. Well, I had still dial-up so it took a bit longer. At a time when I needed to access information for school projects, information was becoming available in mass quantities on the web. Come college, I can count my lucky stars I was able to access the library from home, late at night with my term paper due the next morning. By then we switched to a Cable connection; how did I live with dial-up? I loved taking my laptop on vacations as many hotels now offered internet access. I could look up restaurants and things to do on the internet, get the directions and experience something I would have never found on my own! When the memory card on my digital camera was full, I could upload the photos to my computer to make room for more photos. My laptop and the internet were also indispensable.
It took me a while to get on the Smartphone craze. I had a cell phone but what more does a phone need to do than make and receive calls? Many people around the world don't even have a phone! Then I caved. After college I bought myself an iPhone. My world was once again opened up! I no longer needed to take my laptop on vacations as my iPhone did the same thing and was much smaller to carry. I didn't even need a digital camera anymore, it took photos and could upload them to social networking websites so my friends could see them. My iPhone was indispensable, or so I thought before I got my Galaxy S2. What's next?
When I hear about new technologies that invade our privacy or kill thousands, I wonder if too much technology can be a bad thing. Then I remember how much I enjoy watching documentaries of the Amazon on a HDTV. I can never say if my life would be better or worse without these technologies as I know nothing else. I believe each new development comes with a double edge sword and it is up to us on how we use them because whether we like it or not, technology is a part of us as humans.
Dana Allen lives in the Bay Area and co-runs the Good-Earth Store, an online retail specializing in health. She has a BA in Anthropology from San Jose State University.
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