Tuesday 16 August 2011

The road less traveled...

What does it mean to walk the road less traveled here, now in the 21st century..... I place before you for your examination and scrutiny these thoughts. To walk the road less traveled means to not  be connected to the world via telecommunications of any form. That means no telephones rotary or digital. No television, video games or computers. Social media would mean literally talking to your neighbors face to face not through face time. Speaking while using complete sentences as opposed to omg ic u wtf john, and if you understand what any of that means, then you my friend are no longer on the road less traveled. You like most of us are caught up in the shiny world of the internet, welcome.

I feel personally that this technology like most is here to help us attain a better life a more peaceful existence. There is however something which I believe was not anticipated and that is the speed at which this technology is growing and continues to grow. So quickly it is like trying to hold a glass of water with your bare hands. It is big numbers held in small bytes, massive power that can be folded into the palm of a teenage girls hand it is mind boggling power that may be able to cause great harm in small insidious ways.

But alas I speak as though these things live in an imaginary land and are only a vague pin points of energy in my minds eye, as though the possibility of such things happening are a near impossibility, that we as human beings and members of civilized society would never allow ourselves to be overrun or outsmarted by technology, computers or the internet. And you would be correct in your assumption after all we created this technology with the greatest computers on earth...our minds.

But sadly it has and is happening. We have allowed the corrosion of self via the internet. We judge our self worth by the number of friends we have on facebook and other such sites. We believe that it is normal or ok to allow that our family time be dictated to by our "smart" phones and computers. This is how technology is hurting us in small, subtle, insidious ways. But hope is not lost my friend there is still a silver lining behind that cloud, there is still a rainbow that we can all slide down to our pot of gold we can reclaim ourselves and our lives one byte at a time. We still have within us the power and ability to decide how much of our time is given up to smart phones and the like.

If you work in an office environment where you must use a computer for 8 or sometimes even 10 hours a day, make it a point to schedule how much time you spend on your computer at home . Set aside a specific amount of time to check your email and various electronic accounts. This way you are not losing countless hours of lost sleep surfing the web. Now let's talk about your phone, it is not necessary to answer each and every text right when you get them (emergencies are an exception) it is called a smart phone for a reason it has memory recall, it will save the message for a later time, it will not be lost you can retrieve it LATER.

So let's reclaim our lives and that of our families and society as a whole one byte at a time, let us use this  technology to better our lives not over take them. I will take my first step right now into that reality by signing out and turning off my computer and phone for the next eight hours because I can't type while I sleep. Good night and take care till next time.

DJ 5th Element

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