After reading Sam’s blog about the T-mobile sidekick, I am very intrigued about the issue of connectivity. The first problem that I would like to address is the idea of cell phones symbolizing connectivity. Several years ago I started to notice parents giving cell phones to their children, especially to their daughters. Lots of parents had been concerned about their children’s safety and worried that it’s hard to reach their children without a cell phone. With a cell phone, parents can locate their children just by calling or texting them. So, the question that I would like to ask is “Does a child need a cell phone?”
In today’s 21st century, young children are evolving into a new lifestyle that is based on cell phones and they are too dependent on them. Cell phones are losing their basic purpose; connectivity and it becomes clear that cell phones are becoming more of an “obsession” instead of connecting people. Nowadays, children can chat, play games, listen to music, and browse the internet with their cell phones. For some parents, this could be problematic because children are spending more time with their cell phones texting and calling their friends instead of talking to their parents at home. The ironic part about it is that cell phones are designed to connect people and yet, cell phones are distancing children and their parents.
For the second issue, I agreed with Sam’s opinion that by using cell phones, we are losing our sense of seclusion from the outside world because it’s almost the same as using computers that we known as “Cyber Worlds.” When we are “talking” using cell phones or computers, there are certain degrees of human expression that are limited. For example, we wouldn’t know who is texting or chatting with us; it might not be who we expected it to be.
Furthermore, critiquing the technological side from cell phones, our computer technology develops at a breakneck rate. According to Moore's law, computing power doubles every 2 years or so. Take the Iphone for example. It pretty much covers anything a normal person can dream of. It has internet capability, and with google almost the entire information known to man is accessible within our pockets. It also has mapping and GPS, and we will never be lost again so long as we get a reception from the satellite. It plays MP3s, hours if not days of music to our ears. Above all, it's one sexy device with its touch screen capabilities. But here's the problem with cell phones: battery life. All that power needs battery power, and that's where the technology is stuck in time. The battery technology for cell phones hasn't changed at all since we discovered the first battery.
Overall, critiquing the connection between the connective and recreational aspects of cell phones, I think that people need to embrace the consequences of cell phones technology current state. Sure there are lots of issues that I haven’t mentioned here, but just like Truman had said from his comment, they will always coexist in our everyday life.
2 comments:
"Not until several years ago, I noticed that parents have been giving cell phones to their children, especially their daughter."—This sentence needs work. It should read something like this: "Several years ago I started to notice parents giving cell phones to their children, especially to their daughters." Keep your tenses and your plurals and singulars consistent. This entire post needs a careful proofreading; there are many mistakes throughout that need attention. For instance: "Cell phones are losing its basic purpose...." Cell phoneS are plural, and so *they* are losing *their* purpose (not "its").
You raise a lot of interesting questions around cell phones, but your reader worries that, in the end, you wrap things up too neatly. In your last paragraph, it is not especially insightful to conclude "that cell phones are essential part of today’s modern life." This is obvious, and we can see this by simply looking around at how many people use them. Rather, it would be interesting to critique this binary that you have constructed between the "recreational" and 'connective' uses of cell phones. Why might *neither* of these terms help us think through the complexities of cell phones? What more subtle terms, might we employ to think critically about cell phones?
There seems to be much discussion in our class about technological advances that end up depriving modern life of certain values. In your post, you describe how cell phones, being so commonplace, are creating a separation between parents and children. And whether or not children necessarily need cell phones, a good number of them are equipped with one. These points, despite being valid, seem to dwell too much on something that cannot be changed.
What I mean is that there is so much discussion revolving around reflecting on our current state yet almost no discussion into how to resolve these problems. Not that reflection upon the past isn't important, but what's the use of pointing out specific technological errors? It may be so that cell phones are deteriorating society's ability to personally communicate, but the truth stands that they exist and are part of our everyday lives. Just as with gas fueled cars, we cannot simply eliminate cell phones from out lives.
What might turn out to be a much more meaningful discussion would be methods to resolve such predicaments. Now that you have acknowledged and created awareness of the problem with cell phones, how should society go about dealing with it? How might future technological advances accommodate for these values that we are losing to previous inventions such as the cell phone? You have a thorough description of the errors in our past and present technology, perhaps a follow up post about the future is in order.
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