As I was writing my exam today, I realised that as a people we have become incredibly stupid or rather too reliant on technology and quite frankly, I started asking myself too many questions about our state of stupidity...
Years ago I went to Dion Chang's seminar and he was talking about "the state we are in". Without going too much into details, he basically analysed our reliance and constant need for tecchnology and how this has made us "stupid".
With a click of a button we can simply get the answer we are looking for and more. With google,Wikkie and all these fancy site, one does not really need to know and remember everything when you have access to them. and the fact that we can now simply BBM the experts without any cost on our side, we don't really have to dig for the truth and knowledge.
What technology was suppose to do, it has done and in the process taken our inner need to know. I am reminded at how easy it was for me to do my work during the semester because all I need was to type the question in the google bar and I will have some brainiac out there give me all the answers, and writing my exam today, I realised that brainiac forgot to tell me that I should know this answer and more strongly, I should try to remember and recall it when needed.
This may sound like irresponsibility on my part, but I ask how much of your brain do you use these days; to analyse, ask probing questions and finally come to a well researched conclusion that will form the basis of your knowledge. Frankly, the truth abiding self in you, will remind you that you never think these days because the need to think has been taken over by technology. We have simply become the medium of data transfer.
This is even scarier because we don't even have time for quite contemplation and small thought. That period is gone when one had time to think about something before they can respond to questions or comment on something. Now when you read the news, the first instinct is to comment on what is being reported without even thinking about it.
While at Dion's talk, one of the things I came to realise is that technology no matter how great it is, has made the human race very lazy and unthoughtfull. We hardly even have time alone with our thoughts, because if you are not busy googling, you are are responding to endless emails, texts, fb messages, or simply commenting about Britney Spear's PuJUjU...
We are forver busy with information and never have time to process that information, analyse and quetsion it's authenticity.
I miss the days of reading a book and getting absorbed in the story, use my mind to create pictures and spark my creativity. I miss the days of sitting under the tree with your one litre bottle of coke and simply listening to the sound of my breath if not the humming birds and singing "gogoitjies".
I miss the time when responding to something meant taking pen in your hand, pulling out a piece of paper, then writing your responce, knowing full well that after you have written it, you would have had time to think about it and re-draft your response.
I miss the time when I missed people in my life and when I saw them, I had something to say and we had so much to catch up on. the mystery and intrigue of getting to find out what they have been up to and which direction they have been taking. I miss the time when I did not need to constantly answer to everyone because I was out of reach.
But most importantly, I miss the time when I was alone with my body, mind and spirit, and we were all in one accord and in the same space, because none of us was responding to the everyday demands imposed on by societal need to know about you constantly or your need to probe.
P.S. I am not in any way trying to down-play the conveniences that technology has brought to my life and billions of other people, I am simply weeping for the time when I felt in control of the information that I absorbed...but then again I have the responsibility to sit back and not constantly be in "the know all".
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