"Smart House" doesn't seem so far fetched now...

The Avengers has renewed Corey's love for superheros, so he started downloading all of the Marvel movies so we could watch them together. We started discussing which movies we had or had not seen and which ones were our favorites. He's seen many more than me and obviously knows a lot more about superheros than I do, but once I found out that he hadn't seen the first Iron Man movie I made him download it right away. It was done and ready to watch in less than 10 minutes. Corey said, "It's crazy that you can download a movie faster than I could go get it from the store."

So that made me think...

We are advancing so fast! I remember the first time my mom got an old computer from one of her friends at work. They bought it so that we could write our school papers on them, save them to a floppy disk, and bring them to the library to print. I suppose they also got tired of using a type-writer. We had a small house so we set up the computer in the laundry room and I would sit on top of the shaking washer waiting for my turn on paint. At that time I still typed with two fingers and didn't know how to change the number one into an exclamation point. 

It's probably only been 10 or so years since then, and I now attend a university that issues us laptops with our tuition and requires us to bring them to each class. Email has replaced letters and texting has replaced phone calls. I never even had a cell phone until I was in my junior year of high school. Kids have cell phones in Kindergarten now! Like nearly everyone else,  I have a "smart phone" now which actually makes the Disney Channel movie, Smart House, seem quite reasonable. 

Corey sits across the room at his computer desk, playing a video game on one monitor and watching Iron Man on the other. I have an mp3 player, kindle, and phone attached to my computer. I hear the clicking of my keyboard and Corey's mouse, beeps from IM's, vibrations from my text messages, and the sound from the movie, all at once. Yet, I feel completely relaxed. This is relaxing to me. 

The laptops are a huge thing our school advertises. They brag about the "Northern Network" and their advanced technology, and of course every tour mentions how Obama came all the way here just to show the rest of the world how advanced we are...how it makes our school so much better. Oddly enough, they also advertise that we are "Northern Naturals" Somehow though, the combination of the two in this picture just doesn't seem right. 

A few months ago I read the book Feed by M.T Anderson. It takes place sometime in the future where people have computers implanted into their brains. They actually see a screen in their mind and are constantly bombarded by advertisements, suggestions, and messages. It seems completely chaotic and makes my head hurt just thinking about it, but is it really any different than how things are today? Granted, I can turn off my electronics whenever I want, but sadly, I don't always choose to do that. Almost every night we sleep with a movie on, and my phone is always somewhere near by if not right under my pillow. There are online universities now. Online stores, textbooks, movies, music. Will there become a day when we never leave our house? Kids are home schooled through the computer, parents order food and clothes online. Doctors will be analyzing our symptoms through a webcam. Who knows what is possible. 

As a future educator, technology both excites me and worries me. I'm excited to use technology to help teach. It's a great way to make sure each learning style is met and it can make learning fun, interesting, and each lesson plan unique. However, I can already see the effects of technology in my own life and my own education. Sometimes  I accidentally tune out the people I'm with  for the conversations taking place on my phone or computer. I don't know how to do basic math without a calculator. I don't bother learning how to spell words correctly because the computer will simply fix it for me, and I often spend an entire class on my laptop, rather than actually listening to the lecture. I walk with my head down in my phone rather than seeing the world around me, and I'll spend a warm day inside with my "toys" rather than enjoying the nice weather. Granted, I do go to the beach or lay in my hammock, but not without my phone and/or kindle at my side. 

Times have changed. All in all, it's scary to think of where technology is taking us. Don't get me wrong, I get just as excited as anyone else when a cool new app comes out for my phone, I especially love my Kindle, and I couldn't be sharing this with you now without my laptop.Technology has many benefits of course, but maybe it should remain an aid to society and education, so that it does not become a crutch.