The topic of discussion in class today was Smart Mobs, and I have entitled this post Smart? Mobs very intentionally. This term Smart is so widely used in the technology saturated world we live in. I have a Smart phone, my laptop seems really Smart, my calculator is nothing short of a genius, I can talk to my car so it must be Smart, and my tooth brush tells me how long to bush my teeth... That's Smart! This Smart world we live in today has injected every aspect of our lives with something Smart.
I think there are many people in generations older than mine that are probably fed up with how Smart everything is. I also think there are people younger than me, that by the time they are my age, may be brain dead because their Smart world has thought for them their entire life. Please do not misunderstand me though, I LOVE technology. I would be lost without my iPhone, Macbook, GPS, and even my Sonicare toothbrush, but where will it stop? I am not saying I want it to stop, but how Smart can this world get before it has to shutdown and reboot?
I am reminded of all the IBM commercials about "building a smarter planet." I would love to help build a Smarter planet, and I think my long term carrer will contribute to that end. I like to think that one day I will, in some way, make this Smart planet just a little bit Smarter.
In case you have not seen one of those IBM commercials here is one I like...
I'm currently taking a class on Network Security (ECE 449). It essentially is a crash course on unethical hacking, and it's made me realize how much of this "smart" technology can be reprogrammed. It's far from perfect.
ReplyDeleteAnd tell your friends not to send passwords via email :)
I am also kinda worried about the future generations. Our parents had calculators as we do now, but not ones that could integrate. Now we can do nearly every mathematical operation on our calculators. What will my younger cousins do when they get to school? Math classes will just become calculator classes. As Mr. Brown pointed out all of the technology out there that seems to make everything more convenient or safer may actually be reprogrammed to do the opposite. Kinda scary stuff.
ReplyDeleteI think that even though it may seem like we are getting so technologically advanced that we are missing some of the things that matter. For example being able to do math by hand. However, the only reason we have the technology we are currently using today is because we have been using whatever technology is available to become MORE advanced. Even though technology takes away from some traditions, we are only going to advance as a species if we continue to utilize the means that we have.
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