Did you notice that since the invention of TV, Sound Systems (either home systems, Walkman, Discman, MP3, PDA, etc.), computer (internet included), video games, mobile phones, etc., people tend to live in their "own world"?. You see four friends seating at a restaurant's table speaking on their phones, or different members of a family dispersed around the house (one watching TV, the other surfing the net, another listening to his/her MP3). What happened to family's communication. Don't get me wrong, I love all these things. I'm not a puritan, but if you think about what I am saying, there is something there. \nSometimes I dream that something happens out of a sci-fi movie and an electromagnetic pulse ends these madness, so we'd return to those wonderful times when we have long talks with our family like we used to (at least the ones that had the chance to live it). I remember when for some reason the lights went out and I used to chat with my grandmother for hours. I really miss that.
125217
You have put it splendidly. Those moments with mother, grandmother and very special moments spent with the person you love are absolutely priceless and moment to be treasured. These electronic devices are conveniences and very apologetically are used even for those very people with whom you had those precious moments. These are not lapses but the acceleration of the times we are in. The pace the tempo and the shortening of the times since the advent of the WTC has been very significant. It is noticeable in the immediacy and the urgency which is felt by the higher echelons of the esoteric wrold which seems the contraction of time and the shorening of the time before the advent of the golden age.\n\nIt  is a pity that i have to resort to this very medium to make public what is imminent and now..may be not cancerous but definitely missing the cheese for the chalk you think it is.\n\nThanks for this question which elicits what really IS and COUNTS
49605
It has sadly become far too focused on itself.  If you need more proof, just take a look around at the number of people engaged in a cell phone conversation in public.\n\nIt seems to me our entire culture has turned in on itself, making it ever more convenient to separate ourselves from the world.  Technology has become a double-edged sword, providing us with amazing new ways to be more productive and organized, but often at the expense of human interaction.  Communicaton and entertainment devices provide us with amazing mobility, but our Blackberrys and iPods only further cut us off from one another.\n\nOf course, technology isn't the whole problem.  Our culture has also become incredibly jaded and disenfranchised, always expecting the worst from others and usually getting it.  We use childish, egotistical athletes as role models, making life all about "getting paid".  Our fascination with celebrity has become an obsession--just check out the ratings for "reality" shows.  And our domestic and international political views are too often shaped by sound bites and media talking heads.  Apparently it's just easier to agree with someone than figure it out yourself.\n\nI don't believe it has to be like this.  Our technological advancements don't have to come with a price that devalues our very existence.  And we do not just have to accept that the world with all its troubles is simply beyond redemption.  We simply have to want to be involved in the lives of others. How do we do that?  Parents have to care more about their kids' relationships with others (not to mention their own) than they do about making sure they're doing the right things.  We have to educate on how to use technology to collaborate, instead of to isolate.  We have to look harder for our heroes.  Let's face it--the one thing 9/11 taught Americans was who they really were.  In short, we all have to love ourselves and life and be obsessed about them less.
292025
Many speculate that the www, the web of communication we use so freely these days, is representative of the etheric web where telepathy takes place.  If you look at it that way we're getting pretty darn close to instantaneous communication.  So, yes, I do believe technology is an expression of the evolution of our consciousness.  Good question btw.
439893
Ahh, to be young again.  I remember days like this but someone usually stepped in to assist or break it up.\n\nIn this video, people just continue about their business, like there is nothing unusual happening!  I am saddened that the world has come to this.  This (our young adults) is our future and it appears that they are a bunch of uncaring morons!!!\n\nAnd that someone would record this and laugh and not try to stop it???\n\nApparently, past values have no place in this world!  We, as a people have learned little!\n\nAnd these are the people who will lead the world in the future???\n\nI am deeply saddened as you, too should be!\n\nIMHO,\n\nThe Ol' Sasquatch Ü
347956
I find it interesting that this comes as a question... when in my opinion.. it is so factual that violence portrayed on TV, movies and video games affects people's mind, specially children.   How we in this 'modern' times accept as natural viewing and being bombarded with violence and other stuff from TV.  I have personally stopped watching TV and you know.. I have gained so much in my life.. Instead of waisting my life plugged into the 'garbage tube' I have found renewed interest in music, arts, enjoying friends, exercise and the list goes on.  I have children, they don't live with me since I have been divorced, but when they come visit... the thing they know they are not doing is watching TV...  Sometimes we rent movies, but for me is easy to filter as much as possible what they are watching.  And yes there is violence and sex out there in the real world... but there is no need for us human beings to  get soaked in it 24/7 as we become couch potatoes and let life slip away... as zombies.  My kids and I  have a great relationship and they are always happy to come to my place... because always is an adventure... never knowing what is going on.. what we would do... or go see, experience, meet... in resume live... not by watching it on the screen.. but by experiencing first hand!  Good luck with your paper and hopefully you find some good references.
7168
It's a cultural shift to the age of information. People become jaded about life and love when they are bombarded with internet porn, unattainable bodies, soft drink ads, and winning free ipods. The ideals of our grandparent generation are gone. I don't think that there is all bad to come of this shift, i believe that we are more aware and informed then ever. We have way more options then the you have to marry girl down the street or the person you parent picked out for economic reasons.
183915
Yes, modern day inventions are fascinating. Imagine the stuff that companies have developed but have not shown us. Just the other day, I was reading about quantum teleportation and about creating force fields with plasma. It is amazing how far we have come and where our imagination can take us.
646108
Ppl today have let cell phones become a crutch. We get so used to finding ways to need them, that we become dependent on them in order to function. It's because we've let it take the place of important functions in our lives, such as keeping in touch w/friends & family, when we'd normally, otherwise, work in other ways to not let it take over those important functions, that we grow dependent upon them.\n\nIt's gotten so bad to the point that there's now been a new form of an anxiety disorder that has been developed & recognised, known as Ring-anxiety. It's where we think we hear our phones going off all the time, or develope anxiety over missing a call/text msg & so feel the need to keep checking our phones.\n\nIn today's society we live a much more faster paced life style & because of it, many things that traditionally didn't get the shrug, have now been pushed to the back burner in order to keep up. Such things as face time w/friends & family, keeping in touch w/them, managing our finances, etc. Ppl have learned to incorporate using cell phones into their hectic lives to the point of needing them. \n\nAlso, when we have cell phones, we develope routines w/them. I know that when mine isn't working or I forget to bring it w/me, I find things that I wish I could do that I got used to being able to do when I have my cell w/me, that in the past, I never thought of & could do prefectly fine w/out. For example, when I have to wait in line for something, I usually give my mom a quick call, or on my breaks I call my husband. Thus, this all goes back to my mentioning how we live in a much more fast paced society today & things like keeping in touch have taken a back burner & we neglect to find other ways to work face time & keeping in touch in because we've learned to fall back on our crutch- the cell phone.\n\nBasically, if we didn't have our cell phones, we'd usually find other ways to work around our busy schedules to fill those needs or functions that we've given over to our phones.
352152
i personally feel flash in the pan really. We have had on major wars <yet thankfully> and no great revolutions or technological advances such as bronze/iron age man or the industrial revolution. i wonder what we will be remembered for as a generation, and a worldwide culture?
504515
Interesting question...\n\nIn western society, we certainly live in an artificial world supported by technology. Technology allows instant gratification, more convenience, and a faster pace of life. Some homes have so many appliances, that if the electricity goes off, people can't do anything... wash, cook, heat/cool the rooms. That is rather dependent, I'd say!  And there is an obsession with technology trying to control nature through genetically modifying plants and animals.  Bigger, newer, and more profitable are seen as better.\n\nI see medicine as a branch of technology. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish... save a life, create comfort, or do a facelift for a celebrity, or whatever.\n\nReligion fills a basic human need to believe (or not, if you wish). I think religions which are based on a respect for nature (such as those of many indigenous peoples)  are not obsessions in the sense that you are using. It's hard to generalize about religion when there are so many different types in the world.
615841
As a child the chandelier used to swing from side to side, and the radio would turn on by itself in the middle of the night.\n\nOne time on a camping trip I was walking back from the bathrooms at that moment right between day and night and I saw someone walk across the front of the site and stop behind a tree. So I figure one of the people is going to jump out and try to surprise me, so I pull out my flashlight, walk up to the tree, turn on the light, and there's no one there.\n\nOne time I was alone in a house, and I felt a presence. I looked at a mobile hanging motionless, and said, "If there is anyone else here, make the mobile spin." The next moment, the mobile began to spin.\n\nOne time I was driving into Ponca State Park to set up a large camping gathering, and the sides of the road were lined with spirits. All standing there, clearly visible to everyone, calmly welcoming us back.\n\nOn another camping trip, we felt a spirit near the bon-fire. We had a ring of 40 tiki-torches around the bonfire. It was a still and windless night, but all the tiki flames near the spirit bent in. One of the people in the circle had a fancy camera. After the campout she went to get the film developed, and all the photos from before the visitor turned out, but after that all the film was blank. She took the camera in to be repaired. The repairman asked if she'd been in a nuclear power plant. All the innards were fried from electromagnetism\n\nMy grandmother died while my niece was in utero. After my niece was born, she would look up at areas where no one was standing, and laugh and giggle. We all knew that she was looking at gramma, so we never showed her any pictures. Finally, at about a year old, she could speak, and my sister showed her the family photo album. My niece picked out her photo and said, "That's Old Gramma."\n\nI do spiritual healing with singing bowls. I play the bowl in someone's hand, and feel the vibrations as they extend through the person, and can tell them where the vibrations are and what they're doing.\n\nI used to work with a Reiki master who could tell people many details about their lives while we were doing our energy work. Very specific things\n\nOne time on a camping trip, we created a psychic link which allowed us to keep tabs on each other without needing those family band radios.\n\nOne time, while engaging in on-line activities, a witch and I played a game of "where am I touching you" and we were able to correctly identify where and how the other person was touching from thousands of miles apart over IM\n\nFor a while, a friend and I maintained a karmic connection, and sometimes I would smell something, and call her up, and it was exactly what she was smelling.\n"Did you just make cookies?"\n"Was the dog just breathing in your face?"\n"Did you just disinfect something?"\n\nOften times when I'm driving, I'll see someone walking who doesn't look as several cars go past, and I'll look at the person, and they'll turn to look as I approach. Whereas people with the person (the ones I wasn't looking at) don't turn.
8197
Cell phones and pagers, part of the technological revolution that was supposed to liberate everyone, is tethering people to their jobs to an unprecedented degree, to the point where family life is suffering.\nThe research, by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee sociologist Noelle Chesley, appears in the December issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.\n\n\n"The use of cell phones and pagers was linked to increased distress and a decrease in family satisfaction over time," said Chesley, an assistant professor of sociology. "There is clearly a link between using the technology and experiencing increased access."\n\n\nFor the study, Chesley interviewed working couples over two time periods -- from 1998 to 1999 and again from 2000 to 2001. She found that between the interview periods, the use of cell phones and pagers decreased family satisfaction and increased distress and negative work-to-family and family-to-work spillover.\n\n\n"These technologies are linked to negative experiences and feelings from the workplace spilling over into the home," Chesley said. "We are becoming more accessible, which is letting in more of the bad than the good."\n\n\n"Women get kind of a double whammy," she added. "For women, in addition to having a lot of this stuff from work spill over into home life, they get the opposite. There is also a lot of negative stuff from home spilling over into the workplace."\n\n\nChesley thinks that better management of cell phone use is needed to reduce the stress effect she uncovered. Perhaps employers and employees should set limits on reaching each other to allow time for more positive family interaction, she suggested.\n\n\n"The question is, are these technologies helping us or hurting us in our daily life," Chesley asked. "The results of this study indicate that technology may not be so great."\n\n\nOne expert thinks the findings support the idea that cell phones are changing culture -- and not necessarily for the better.\n\n\n"These findings seem to support my intuitions about how cell phones affect our daily lives -- blurring boundaries between work and family life because of increased accessibility," said Tate Kubose, a cognitive scientist at the University of Illinois Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.\n\n\n"They also support the notion that we should really appreciate our women more, as they seem to shoulder a lot of the burden, even in marriages where both spouses work," he added.
101473
I think technology is keeping families in touch information wise but we are not (IN TOUCH).  We no longer sit down to dinner with the family anymore now we don't even have to go thru the task of talking on the phone or writing a letter. When was the last time you sat around and just relaxed with family and friends and connected on a personal level?\n\n We are connected but in NO WAY are we IN TOUCH.
222675
Of course technology leads to social isolation in some situations. For instance, the people holed up in their houses for days on end with game systems. Being on the internet constantly...I could go on and on. I have though of it before, and the impact on our society as a whole, but we have to change with it. There are positive aspects, too, such as making deadlines at work via working 'over' at home, e-mailing and IMs to people who you wouldn't normally be able to contact due to high long distance costs, etc.
525059
Because of the breakdown of the traditional family.  When I was a kid all the mothers were home and they had husbands that worked. Dinner was at 5:30 every evening and there were very few excuses to not be setting at that table as a family together.  \n\nOur TV time was restricted to Saturday morning cartoons and Ed Sullivan on Sunday evening.  WE spent most of our time playing and using our imaginations.   We had lots of friends and rode our bikes and played softball....\n\nPeople bought homes and lived in them for 30 or more years.  I bought my parents home so I'm fortunate to have my same neighbors since childhood.  WE have a great sense of community.   \n\nToday I see single parent homes where the kids are pawns in a bitter battle of visitation and custody.  Lots of children have one parent who is completely out of the picture.  They live at the poverty level while the missing parent may have started a new family that doesn't even include them.  It's like they are disposable.  No wonder kids join gangs to feel love and acceptance.\n\nThey grow up fast because they have to.  They are preparing their own meals and are often in a latch key situation where they watch hour upon hour of television.  Cable TV in the home and God only knows what they are watching...\n\n\npeace
151767
Our dependence upon technology and the fear it fosters as technology becomes a more prevalent entity in our everyday life is the critique of contemporary culture--for example, the strange chemicals in the school that kill a worker cleaning up the asbestos or the conversation between Jack and Babette in the bedroom that is constantly interrupted by a blaring television set. I hope this helps you get another perspective on the novel. Good luck.
96117
still waiting on it, but personally i think the next invention ( be it what ever it may be ) will further insulate society from one another like the current state of connectivity does right now. interesting isn't he, he we are on this board posting replies, when we could be outside... connecting.. with people.. and not text..