It's only a matter of time before the machines take over

I perhaps have mislabeled my post but when watching The Digital Nation I felt a lot like John Connor sitting back and watching the announcement of Skynets newest advancement. Um, no thank you, please. But is it true that they only thing technology will eventually do for use will be destroying us? When I first left the movie that is what I felt like. I felt sick to my stomach and almost had my first real panic attack. Am I destine to live in a world were nothing I touch eat or see is real? I had a thought similar to this, ‘I am destine to be stuck in the matrix.’ I thought about the human world versus the computer world. If we treated people the same way we treat computers and their programs we would delete anyone who was too slow or had any kind of error. We don’t care at all about a computer system that won’t work exactly the way we want it to, we dump it and throw it out. But the human world, at least on the individual level, is not about efficiency, it is about love, something computers will never know. Was love destine to be digitalized?

Later, however, I realized that technology is not that scary for me. I was at work, on the computer I might add, when a friend of mine was looking at winter boots to buy online. I thought to myself this is what is really happening. Kids are not being stolen from parents and plugged into a 3D environment; we are just looking at boots and watches. Then later we go to the story and buy them. At least most of us are.

There still are big problems with this much power open to really anyone. I am glad I was able to see the part with the addicts from Korea because I know that it is a real thing. I see them in the library on Saturday nights playing computer games all the way until close, at 11:45 at night. I have actually known a person who after high school did not go to work, and did not go to school, but lived with his mom. He would sleep till noon or 1:00 in the afternoon, eat, rest and lay around, till 5 when he would play World or Warcraft till 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. He has since radically improved his life, but still there are those who may never drop the addiction of video games. The saddest thing about video games is they only give a false sense of accomplishment. In reality you gain nothing, and lose much, by “beating” or playing video games.

Let me switch to the reading just for a moment before I return to my favorite part about digital nation. The biggest thing that I am got out of the reading is that weather we like it or not most of the education that is happening is coming through the media. Rather than force the book and pencil on our children we should direct their journey through media so that they come in contact with the good that is out there. If we can gather all the good and all the truth, well then it starts sounding like a religion, and we see that internet, movies, and music are just a path in which information is relayed. Books do the same thing, you can get a book that lies or destroys or a book that is holy. Can’t movies provide us with the same thing? So we need to teach our children to read and write and search the internet. Media literacy can help people find their own way through the sea of technology and find their way, maybe not to an island, but islands of knowledge and wonder, and navigate between them.

The part that I actually liked the best from The Digital Nation was the end. In class the ending received some perhaps deserved criticism. The creator of the documentary comes into the room talks about what he likes and then says, “but the thing I love most of all is turning it off.” Some asked, what does that even mean, but I am pretty sure that I have said that before. My favorite part of technology is being able to turn it off. This is what it means, at least for me. I am a massive extravert and I need face to face communication. In order to “charge my battery” as it were I need time in the real world to talk and get immediate and personal interaction. But when we post something on the internet we ironically don’t get immediate feedback. And when I we do it can seem rushed, halfhearted, temporary, and anything but personal. I guess what I really want to say is no matter how theologically advance our world becomes what really matters are the same things that mattered thousands of years ago with zero technology, heart, soul, love, creativity, kindness, hobbies, and love.