Revised Response Paper

The Slow Implementation of Technological Advancements

I was left behind. As technology continued to flatten the world throughout my late childhood and teen years I had, at some point, many of the latest electronics at my fingertips. Yet as technology improved with very blink of an eye and the “latest” electronics soon took the backseat, I, along with my family, have failed to take many of the necessary steps to facilitate the way we communicate with the world around us.

With today’s technology “the world has changed in profound and unsettling ways…at warp speed and directly or indirectly touching a lot more people on the planet at once” (49). According to Tomas Friedman in The World is Flat 3.0, this rapid change may either “overwhelm people or leave them behind” (50) if they are reluctant to change, and since they are “inevitable, even predictable, changes” (49) people must find the best way to adapt. Failing to take part in the technological advances of today does not automatically mean one could not properly function in today’s society. Doing so only means one would probably face more obstacles when it comes to doing something where technology is required and communicating with people in different locations may be limited or never occur. Of course, at the fast rate technology is affecting our everyday lives it is only a matter of years until it will become necessary for everyone to have their own devices through which to communicate.

            My family is a great example of how the slow implementation of technological advancements negatively affects the daily lives of people. When my sister and I were small and technology did not have the tremendous impact it does today, our parents, over the years, actually invested in a typewriter, a Nintendo with two or three games, and a huge desktop computer when such items were popular. We also had the basic electronics such as a television, VCR, stereo, cassette players, and a cord home phone. But as we grew up and technology began increasing at an astonishing speed, our parents failed to modernize the slow, big, simple, and inconvenient electronics with fast, thin, updated, convenient ones. It has become apparent they only do so if the device has stopped functioning correctly and updating it is the only option or they decide it is not worth updating it at all. Sure, we now have an HD television but only because the analog television before it stopped functioning correctly and it doesn’t have cable television (it only did for a few months after we got it). And after our huge desktop computer got numerous viruses, which inevitably led it to have a slow online connection to the point it was unproductive, our family failed to update it since we could have access to the internet and the world wide web elsewhere. Although it can many times be inconvenient and time consuming, we have come to rely on the free computer and web access from our public library only two blocks away from our home and on school computers during the school year. For the most part our family has been left behind in the technological world for the simple reasons most of today’s technology revolves around electronics which are not essential for our daily survival (but which are essential in the worlds of entertainment and communication) and because technology is not yet to the point where it is economically available in all households.

            Apart from the decisions that have been taken in my family regarding our current relationship with technological devices, I have for various reasons also chosen not become too involved in the ownership of technological devices. Preferring to reduce the economical burden on my parents, being energy conscious, environment-friendly and not much of a social person, I have only recently gotten my first cell phone and ordered a laptop online. Although such decisions have ultimately kept me away from online communities and from becoming more technology dependent, through them I will inevitably become less distanced from the fast paced realm of technology. However, even though I am only recently obtaining such technological tools, I have had to rely on them through others in the past, such as asking someone else for their phone or utilizing internet access away from home, and it has many times been inconvenient.

            The fact our family has yet to obtain many of the technological tools needed to stay up to date in this busy and interconnected world demonstrates how, despite the fast speed at which technology is evolving, many people are still being left behind and unable to take full advantage of all the benefits such technology offers. Perhaps part of it has to do with our Hispanic background and the fact we live in an area where most of the people do not spend large percentages of their income in updating their electronics. Being in this situation is certainly not easy and I realize the fact we are slowly being required to become part of this technology tapestry even though it is at a much slower rate.