10-15 yrs ago we hardly used computers/cell phones as much as we need them now...

Personally, Have you become more reliant on computers, iPods, mp3s, CD burning, & could you retreat 10-15 yrs ago where technology was still a "baby"? Would you survive?

Since I'm almost 17, I started using the computer when I was around 7 (beginning w/ computer games :) ) Now that I'm older & practically a senior in high school, I find that I HAVE to rely on the computer not just for my own "surfing pleasure" but for things like school, projects.

Any thoughts on this?

10-15 yrs ago we hardly used computers/cell phones as much as we need them now...

Personally, Have you become more reliant on computers, iPods, mp3s, CD burning, & could you retreat 10-15 yrs ago where technology was still a "baby"? Would you survive?

Since I'm almost 17, I started using the computer when I was around 7 (beginning w/ computer games :) ) Now that I'm older & practically a senior in high school, I find that I HAVE to rely on the computer not just for my own "surfing pleasure" but for things like school, projects.

Any thoughts on this?


I certainly have! My mam bought our first computer back in '98 (i think), and since then i've loved computers. I've been playing on consoles ever since I was about 5 though. We only got the internet just before Christmas, and i've started using really heavily the last couple of days. I need sleep!  :D

At the time, you just lived without them. Fifteen years ago, computers for me were just things we used in school sparatically, when we visited the computer lab. Or if we were extra good, we could use Print Shop to make flyers or banners! As far as cell phones, I would die today without one. Let's say 10 years ago, everyone my age had pagers. I remember then thinking how I couldn't live without mine. We thought we were so cool when we got pages. The thing that sucked is you had to then find a pay phone to return the call or check your voicemail.

Oh, and you mentioned using computers for research.........there once was a thing called, the card catalog.  ;D

The irony of technology is the same paradox of all materialism.  The more you have, the more you need.
I'm not a luddite.  Technology can either improve our lives or enslave us to corporations.  Since corporations control technology and government, we are becoming enslaved to them and their technology.

Technology will not make us free in mind, body, soul, or society. 

When I was a kid there were banks of payphones all over the place.  Good luck finding a working payphone now!  Of course, the technophiles will say, "But we don't need pay phones, we have cell phones."  What if I don't want to carry a cell phone?  What if I am, gasp, poor and have bad credit?  Then I may not even be able to get a cell phone.  In the recent past, a poor person with no telephone could at least make a phone call if he had a quarter.  Not anymore. 
And now people EXPECT to be able to call you anytime, anywhere, so we are becoming obligated to buy cell phones and fork over even more money to the giant tele-com firms. 
Ten years ago,  didn't even have an email address.  Now if you don't have email, you feel cut off from society at large, and people act like there's somethng wrong with YOU!
The same thing happened in the 20th century with transportation.  We once lived in walkable neighborhoods, and you could get a streetcar anywhere in town.  Families fortunate enough to have a car of their own used it for long trips or liesurely Sunday drives.  Dad still took the train to work.  By the 1960s anyone outside of places such as NYC who did not have a private automobile was at an ENORMOUS disadvantage.  On top of the utter inconvenience, having no car became viewed as a badge of failure by our corporate-driven values system.
That's not freedom, friends, that is slavery! The man says technology will make us "free," the man lies to us, always has, always will, wheher the technology is the internal combustion engine or the microchip!