Is Technology Taking Over?

     I went up to Leamington last Sunday to visit a friend. Within 5 minutes of me getting there, after a 2.5 hour train ride mind you, he decided that we were going to go play golf! Do keep in mind that my only previous contact with the notion of golf was swinging a Wii controller up and down and looking at little cartoon characters play it on screen... So we start with some stroke practice where I proved my status as a complete golf newbie and nearly decapitated the man standing next to me at one point with a golf ball...thankfully there were very tall and sturdy barriers set up to prevent this sort of thing...it must be a common occurrence. I get a phone call a little later from a friend we were expecting to arrive in Leamington soon. When I told him what we were up to his response was something along the lines of: “...you mean on the playstation?!”  Amusingly enough not only did I not find it strange that he would ask that but I probably would have asked the same thing in his shoes.

     That got me thinking about how closely tied our generation has become to technology that we’d sometimes consider it more “normal” in a sense to be playing a simulation of a game or sport rather than be outside trying to do it ourselves. It’s a fine line to balance, where does technology stop being a helpful tool and start governing everything we do making us unable to do anything without it? I’m guilty myself of relying a little too much on my smart phone from time to time.  So when does it stop being clever use and start becoming abuse? The possibility of being able to get so immersed in a simulation of the world and experiencing everything without having to face the real world is a scary notion, especially for parents who are less clued in about this technologically rich world and have a hard time understanding where the line lies determining between what remains reasonable and what can be considered an excessive and dangerous abuse of it.

...I guess one could say that when you stop thinking, acting and experiencing life for yourself because "technology is here to do it for us" is when you've taken a step too far and indulged a little too much.

Photo credit: "Reach in and reach out" by Tomitheos

Original photograph may be found here