In her comment, Kaila brought up the idea that "sometimes necessity isn't the mother of invention: invention is the mother of necessity." I spent all of sophomore year applying the phrase "necessity is the mother of invention" to all of world history, but I'd never really thought about the other side of it. When I saw her comment, I remembered writing down a unique sentence from The Shallows that had some similar wording. Carr had said, "By choice or necessity, we've embraced the Net's uniquely rapid-fire mode of collecting and dispensing information." By choice or necessity. When I read it after reading Kaila's comment, I started realizing that when the internet was first invented, people actually had a choice. They weren't already extremely dependent on the internet to do all the work for them. But now? The internet has become so ingrained in our everyday lives that we don't really have a choice. We have to use it. Maybe not as frequently as many of us do, but we do need the internet, even though people didn't before.
The internet is the perfect example of an invention that worms its way into people's lives until they need it. Before the internet was invented, people were perfectly fine with walking into the library to do research out of books. They didn't NEED the internet, and I doubt many of them thought it was even possible. But in today's world, our teachers need to require a minimum of ONE book for our research papers because no one would look for their information in a book otherwise. It's obvious that while we didn't need it before, if the internet somehow stopped working worldwide, we'd all be screwed. Big time. Except, of course, the people around the world who never use the internet. People who live in poverty and don't use technology very much at all, let alone the internet. They would be perfectly fine. There would be no crisis for them because they never needed and probably never will need the internet. But for us, losing the internet would be like losing a family member. You don't really think about them much, but once they're gone, you realize how dependent you were on them.
So I'll end this by putting a few questions out there for you guys to think about. Is it really a smart idea to be this dependent on the internet, despite it's benefits? And should we continue inventing even more new, mind-blowing technology that we don't really need, even after seeing the effects of the internet on the world? Do you think we would have been better off without the internet in the first place? Or do the pros outweigh the cons?
Sorry about the extremely long rant,
- Lina Elasmar
Hello Lina! I think at this point in time, there is no going back to being less dependent on the internet. The internet along with the rest of the technology that is around us, will continue to advance. Whether it be for the good or bad of our society. Although this new technology may be mind blowing or even a little daunting at first; eventually it will become the norm within the general public. Just like how the internet and smartphones and etc were crazy for their time. Now they are all commonplace in our society...So long story short, as time goes on our dependency on the internet will grow.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing! The internet is already invented so there's no way to remove it from the world. This technology was created to make life easier for people. Yes, it is not needed but it's a matter of decisions if one wants to use it or not.
DeleteYes, the technology has already been created, so I agree that it'd be impossible to remove it now. However, I disagree with the last sentence in your comment about it being a matter of decisions. I just don't think it is anymore. We have to use it for school, work, and social communication. And i think that's my main point in this whole rant: People used to have a choice, but we don't anymore. It's become a necessity.
DeleteI feel like you could say that books also wormed their way into society just like the internet. Before the printing press the common people did not need books but after the printing press people had to have books to do research or learn about other parts of the world. So in that sense, i would say books are just like the internet.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on that! And the invention of the printing press had some main similarities with technology/the internet and the way they changed the world. They both helped spread ideas faster and brought about new eras of globalization. But our dependency on books benefited us. Other than cutting down trees and ruining our eyesight, books don't really affect us in negative ways. So what we have to decide is, is the dependency on the internet and technology we've developed more positive than negative?
DeleteGood point.
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