I cannot stand it when people assume that everyone from my generation was “born with a (computer) mouse in their hand.” This is certainly not the case or at lease not with me. I like to believe that most of us actually grew up climbing trees and running around outside as children. I’m starting to doubt it. That’s why it is always disheartening to hear about and witness everything becoming more mechanized and technological. Sure, Email and cell phones bring us together. But why do we seem to be becoming increasingly out of touch with what is around us? We so often walk around with our cell phones or our iPod headphones attached to our ears that we hardly notice our surroundings anymore.
I try to be optimistic, but I see our ways of receiving information becoming even more technological than they are already. The same will come to how we receive information about environmental issues. When it comes to actually understanding the environment, however, people need to turn away from all of the technology. As environmentalists start to stress the need to “act locally,” I hope people start to communicate a little more locally as well. Whatever happened to word-of-mouth?
I know many probably think that technology helps speed up communication. I think it just creates more confusion. It would be nice if we could just skip the technology and go straight into telepathy. That way we can turn away from our screens and actually start looking at one another again.
