I often think that as a society, we’re too wrapped up in technology. Don’t get me wrong, I love the advances we’ve made just during my lifetime. I can remember when there were no mobile phones, tablets, laptops, or any type of personal computer. When my sister graduated from high school, one gift she really wanted was an electronic calculator, just to do basic arithmetic functions. That device cost my parents nearly $200. Today, you can download an app on your phone or tablet that can do complex mathematical equations, for free. I remember being able to leave the house, and bieing completely unavailable as I didn’t;t have a phone to carry with me and when I returned, the only messages I had were those taped to my front door. That’s right, no voicemail or at that time, a separate machine to record messages from your phone called an answering machine.

Today, technology is running faster than we can keep up. I remember when Star Trek, the Next Generation debuted (1987) on television. That was must-see TV. A device that I often saw crew members use was a tablet the they manipulated with their fingers. Hello, iPad? Consider a couple of years ago the idea of A.I. It was mostly stuff of science fiction( like Star Trek) but today, is close to becoming a reality. In my college days, we researched something known as Knowledge Engineering: software to make our professional lives easer. For instance, a friend of mine at that time was working with a team of software engineers to develop software for doctors to assist them in diagnosing patients. Back then, the task seemed enormous. Today? Ask Grok or ChatGPT(or any of the other software implementations) almost anything and instantly receive not only the answer, but the reasoning behind it. I actually had Grok rewrite my resume a few months ago as a test. Honestly? It was much better than anything I could have come up with at the time. I had a retired English professor I know look at it and she was really impressed by what the machine wrote.

So, I can complain all I want about being too attached to technology, but until I actually stand up from here and toss this notebook out the window, smash my big screen television to bits, and do the same to all of my gadgets, I’ll continue to grumble but still utilize those vice until they break. Then I’ll replace them.