Whoever stays unplugged the longest wins...

Our reliance on technology can be sort of funny if you think about. Isn’t it just a little ridiculous that most people today’s wouldn’t know how to go about getting directions if they didn’t have access to Google Maps or a GPS device? What if we had to revert back to using the card cataloging system at libraries instead of the now-standard computer based search engines to find books or other resources? Last week, I saw a great example of how our reliance on technology is reflected in popular culture as this topic provided fodder for the popular sit- com “Modern Family”.

An episode titled “Unplugged” has to do with the Dunphy’s (one of the families featured on the show) holding a family contest to see who can go the longest without using cell phones or computers. The problem is that it’s almost impossible to get by now-a-days without the internet; for example, the mom can’t figure out how to book an airline flight, the dad runs into problems with maintaining his fantasy football league, and one of the daughters does a report for school only to get a bad grade on it because the information she got from books was so outdated.



Using these things has become second-nature for me. I literally use my cell phone and the internet all day long. For instance, sometimes I get on the internet before I leave for work to check the weather. Then, when I’m at work I visit all of the sites that have become second nature for me to visit before I even start working (email, Blackboard, Facebook, Goodreads, The Huffington Post, etc.). And of course I use the internet throughout the day for both my job (I’m an assistant to the VP of info tech at Ball State and am currently working on transferring the Teleplex website to a different web content manager) and for school (despite the fact I’m an English studies major, the internet is heavily incorporated into most of my classes). I use my cell phone to talk to my sisters when I walk to class from work. Then I use my cell phone while I walk home to talk to my dad who can be a very chatty so talking to him while I’m in transit is an efficient time-saver. When I get home for the day, I almost always need the internet to do my homework. Plus, I use it for so many other random things like checking movie times, looking up recipes, talking to my family, shopping, etc.

It really would be a struggle to go without things like computers and cell phones even for a day. I grew up in a time when these things weren’t around (I was born in 1985. I didn’t get my first cell phone until I was about 15 in 2000), yet I’ve truly adapted to the way of life that has become to norm today.

Happy Halloween!
~*~Bridget~*~