I am a child of technology....

  So I’m watching the news today and there’s some MD or PHD who looks he came out of a cave.  We’re talking the total Geico Man doppelganger here.  So anyway, the Geico looking guy with the PHD or the MD or the BA in BS or what have you is ranting about the evils of technology and how it’s almost a forbidden fruit kind of deal.  With every bite from this nectar of so called efficiency and or convenience, we lose our ability to function because, essentially, technology is doing our thinking for us.  Now, in some cases, I’ve seen technology paralyze some people.  I was at work when our computer servers went down and we had to function old school style.  In other words, we had to document everything by hand and file everything by hand until the computer servers were restored.  That’s right.  No PC’S, No printers, no internet.  Just me and my co workers and our will to get things done by any means necessary.  For me, it was a question of shaking off the rust of having everything at my fingertips.  For me it was a matter of getting used to doing things manually for an extended period of time.  Now I’m not saying that all mammals can adapt this easily.  I have to be honest, to see my co workers have to go it old school in terms of their shift was akin to watching a bunch of people going through withdrawal.  I’m actually surprised that no blood was shed during the server outage at my place of employment.  There was indeed an aire of one of those films were good people are trapped in an untenable situation and then in act two, tensions rise and all hell breaks loose.  More to the point, it was like something out of a Stephen King novel.  But let’s not be wet blankets here.  Technology DOES have its uses.  Having the ability to pay my bills on line without having to schlep to a nearby currency exchange for money orders and stamps is a god send.   As a writer I enjoy the benefits of being able to Google search various literary agents in search of my big break.  I enjoy the benefits of email and being able to search for jobs if need be, with one click.  Now I know what you’re saying.  But doesn’t all this easy access have pitfalls?  Aren’t we creating a world of people, who, thanks to Facebook and the like, won’t be able to effectively communicate?  I love that image that people cast.  A bunch of Facebookites emerging, as if from an apocalypse, into the harsh realities of the earth’s surface and the physical world at large.  Do I think Facebook is an evil monster out to corrupt everyone’s ability to communicate and function in everyday reality?  I don’t think so but who knows what that evil demigod of social media, Mark Zuckerberg, has in store for us ordinary folk who reside in the land of the Facebook.  All I know is, I like my Facebook and I like my online bill pay but I’m perfectly at ease if time reversed itself and I lived in a techno free world.  Yes, I am a child of technology and I’m not allergic to sunlight and I know the difference between online friends and real by good people who want to share the same things you do.  Hell, I even prefer physical books to download ones.  Hell, I even have DVD’S and CD’S at home.  I am a child of technology and I am fully functional.  OK, so I kind of hate the world at large and I tend to gravitate towards unavailable women but that’s technologies fault.  I am a child of technology but I know when to say when.