Technology vs. Simplicity

For those of you who don’t know, this Christmas break has been quite challenging for me as far as technology goes. First, I had my laptop worked on for what I thought would only take a few days- it ended up taking a few weeks. Now this wouldn’t have been bad but then I lost my iphone. Which I am still absolutely mind-blown about considering I think the thing was literally attached to my hand since I got it only a few months ago. Now, you are probably thinking, oh my goodness that is just sad- sad as in I can’t live without these things. Not true. It has made me quite creative lately and I have done quite a bit of problem solving. But, I won’t go into those details.

The real frustrating part is that these two things coincided. You see, they completely swiped my computer AND I lost my iphone. Meaning, getting everything back the way I want it is still in progress. What I can’t help thinking is- this is pathetic. I really think that many of us in my generation have indeed been spoiled by the genius that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates created. Living life without my laptop and iphone 4 has made life- well “more difficult”. How sad is that?

So, I started thinking, what if I just gave up all this technology stuff and went back to doing stuff the “old fashioned way”. Like actually calling people on a landline instead of texting or facebooking. While many people would agree that technology has made our generation somewhat lazy, it has done a lot of good things for us that other generations before us never had. Our resources are practically limitless.

I suppose what I am trying to point out to some skeptics whom (justly so) have called my generation out on our dependence on technology is this- our biggest challenge will be to balance technology and good ‘ole simplicity. We have the world at our fingertips and truly can do almost anything we want- but we also have to appreciate living. 

My example for this balance is going to be last summer. If it weren’t for technology I would probably never see my sister and my nephew. But thanks to Facetime, I get to see both of them fairly regularly (even at Christmas). However, this last summer my whole family was finally able to come together and go on a little kayaking escapade. While we are definitely a family devoted to our iphones and apple products all those were left at home and we spent an amazing day on the river. So, I think our generation makes technology work- as long as we don’t get truly dependent on it. Because, contrary to common belief I survived this absence of technology. I think I will be okay if we do have an apocalypse and technology is gone. I haven’t become a mindless zombie yet!