Blog #11: Final Blog Post

 In 1964, at the World's Fair in New York, a famous display called the Futurama was presented. The point of this presentation was to predict how the world would look in the future as a result. It was an extremely optimistic display, meant to make people excited and hopeful for the future of the world.

Futurama: City of Tomorrow

The predictions that the Futurama made were surprisingly accurate in many of the claims it made. For example, the video talks about how man will soon be able to explore and the study the moon--which we know is a reality today. It also talks about how we will eventually be able to farm and harvest materials from the sea that we can use for sustenance which we also know is happening today.

There were a few things stated throughout the presentation which aren't entirely correct or haven't happened yet but all-in-all, the predictions were fairly accurate.

It is also very apparent that the people behind the making of the Futurama display were extremely confident in technology's ability to improve human's quality of life. Although I do think this optimism is a bit naive, I find it refreshing to see a group of people living a lie backed by hope and excitement rather than negativity and fear.

An animator named Steve Cutts, has created several videos that bring light to the problems that technology has caused in our lives.

Steve Cutts

In one of his animations, we see a world in which people are so all-consumed by their cell phones that they are completely unaware and unbothered by what is going on around them. People are also complete non-transparent with their lives online, making it seem like they are "living in their best lives" when in reality they feel empty, sad, and unfulfilled.

In a different video animated by Cutts, we follow a man from 500,000 years ago up until present day. We see him killing animals, destroying the earth, and overall wreaking havoc for his own personal gain. The more technology he gains access to, the more desolation this man enacts.

Both of these animations take a much more pessimistic approach to the use of technology. They serve as good reminders of the bad things that can happen if we let technology get out of control.

We as a society have become extremely reliant on technology--in my opinion, too much so in some cases. I believe this is because for so many years, when technological advancements really began to take off, it was enhancing the quality of human life that we were, in many ways, blindsided by the problems that it could bring about.

I love technology. I genuinely could not imagine life without it. Not a day has gone by where I haven't use technology in some form. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

In my eyes, technology usage becomes a bad thing when we start mindlessly scrolling, believeing everything we see instead of forming thoughts of our own.

Personally, I often find myself falling into this whole. I will go on my phone simply with the intention of responding to a text, and next thing I know, I have been scrolling through Instagram for half an hour, reading posts and automatically taking the opinions of others as fact instead of doing real research for myself. 

We as a society have to remember the importance of real, face-to-face interaction. We cannot allow technology to overpower that kind of natural human communication. We also have to become more media literate--being intentional about what we are viewing rather than sucking up every bit of information like a human vacuum.

Technology is a tool that should be used responsibly to better society. But in my opinion, the most important and valuable asset we have in our life is our own mind, and technology can never take its place. So don't let it!