Norah Barry

Professor Miller

10/4/23

ENG 110

Googley-Technology Essay

Technology is its own universe and there are trillions of things that it is made up of. A lot of aspects that make up this technological universe are often controversial, and many people have a challenging time agreeing completely on different issues they deem important. There are people who believe that technology is not doing anything good for us at all and it is making us, in a sense, move backwards. On the other side there are people who worship technology and believe that we could not live without it. After reading Nick Carr’s, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” article Carr is more on the side that technology is not helping us. Then after reading Kevin Kelley’, “Technophilia” article it was noticeably clear that he was not in agreement with Carr and loves technology.[DD1]  Although there are parts of Carr’s essay that I do agree with, I tend to agree more with Kevin Kelley. While keeping Kelley’s essay in the back of my mind I read my peer’s essays and tie in their ideas with my own. The two I chose to include in my writing include Kayleena’s Technology essay, and Samantha Veilleux’s Technology essay.

When we are far away from loved ones it can be really challenging for us. With the invention of technology and more specifically the smart phone, we have been able to avoid hardships regarding distance with loved ones. Kelley’s[DD2]  Technophilia [CR3] article is about the love for technology, it is in the name. Technophilia, being defined as the love for technology. [DD4] Many people can admit that they love their phones, computers, and other technologies, but why? I tried to look at this question from a unique perspective and had the thought that people love their technology so much because they have access to talk to other people through it. At the beginning of Kelley’s article, he begins his argument with a story about his friend’s daughter and what she endured after having her phone taken away. Kelley states, “Immediately the girl became physically sick. Faint, nauseous, and so ill she could not get out of bed. It was if her parents had amputated a limb. And in a way they had.” We often use our technology to communicate with people we love who we cannot be in person with and even though they are not here with us there is this overwhelming comfort that in a click of a few buttons they can “be there.” It is humane of us to feel physically sick when we lose someone, whether they passed away or you just do not speak anymore. The girl that Kelley mentions in his story is, in a sense, having all these people ripped away from her at once. Without her phone she feels an immense amount of loneliness that comes from not being able to speak to people she loves and cares about, which could be where the sickness she is experiencing is coming from. After thinking about this I happened to read Kayleena’s Technology Essay where she explains how her phone has been her way of staying in touch with family back home in Michigan. Kayleena addresses, “I am from Michigan which is about a 13-hour straight drive from the University of New England… having a phone where I can call, text, or facetime my family is amazing”. If we did not have such advanced technology, then this would not be possible. In this case the love for our phones stems from the people who are on our phones. This is not the full reason, but it plays an influential part.

Switching perspectives is not a walk through the park and it in fact can be extremely challenging for someone to really be able to change the way they look at something. However, it is extremely important to at least try and, in this case, change our perspectives on technology. The[IG5]  thought that technologies are taking over is not a crazy thing to think. It is everywhere, anywhere, all the time. Theres more technology in this world than our brains could ever even comprehend. The number of times humans use some form of it a day is an unthinkable amount.[DD6]  That leads me to the question of, what if we did not have this technology? Many people lived their lives before us without it and they were fine, but were they fine? It has helped us produce medicine that cures what were once uncurable diseases, it gives us transportation to travel the world easier than it ever has been, it even allows us to help protect our earth, and in so many more ways it has helped us advance. It opens an endless world of opportunities for us as a society. As Kelley puts it, “Its boundaries are unknown, unknowable, its mysterious uncountable. The bramble of intertwined ideas, links, documents, and images create an otherness as thick as a jungle. The web smells like life.” The idea that the web “smells like life” was so interesting to hear. It brought my thoughts back to how we have so many people who we love and care about on our phones. Life is just flowing through our phones, social media, texts, calls, and apps. You can always find something going on in your phone which in a way means it is alive all the time, and as Kelley says, “smells like life.” As for the rest of the quote from Kelley, it really puts into perspective how large and daunting the web is, like a jungle.[IG7]  So much room for growth and advancements. One thing I feel like people who fear technology tend to forget is that this world is changing every second all the time. Why don’t we take advantage of the change and look at all the positive outcomes? In Veilleux’s technology essay she uses the words, “I am of the belief that one should simply shift their perspective, looking not towards what is lost, but towards what has been gained.” Personally, I am a strong believer that there is always going to be change whether we like it or not. Shifting out perspectives can also shift our lives and it is important for people who hate technology to at least try to look at it from a positive outlook.

With all these advancements it is easy to be in the mindset that these modern technologies are harming us, and at the rate of advancement people may even feel a sense of threat from these recent technologies. One thing that I think about is how our phones and computers are one hundred times smarter than us. They can notice things we cannot, understand things we cannot, and spit out information at a speed that would be impossible for any human to achieve[DD8] . On the more extreme end of this scale there are robots taking over people’s jobs and putting people out of work. However, on the less extreme side there’s things like Grammarly and spell check that do the dirty work for us. To some this may be annoying because the computer is outsmarting them and telling them what they need to fix and what they have messed up. In Veilleux’s technology essay she shares, “I can, and do, rely on technological tools such as spell check and Grammarly to do a vast majority of the work for me.” For most people tools like this are extremely helpful and make the actual writing part easier so that they do not have to worry about the trivial things. I know personally that they have helped me be able to focus more on the actual thinking part of writing which I believe has benefitted the outcome of my writing pieces.

Technology can be good, bad, and everywhere in between. I do not believe that only positive things come out of our use of it. In fact, I agree there are many negative side effects that it has on us. However, I do think that our world needs technology and if we look closely there are a lot of amazing things that it does for us every day. By using the work of my peers, Nick Carr, and Kevin Kelley I want readers to be able to understand that everyone has a different view on technology and that is perfectly okay. There is no correct way to view it, it is a whole different world, and everyone is living through it for the first time.

Works Cited

Veilleux, Samantha. “Technology Essay.” UNEportfolio, https:// Veilleux-eng110.uneportfolio/citing-your-peers/. Accessed September 29^th 2023.

Calm, Kayleena. “Technology Essay.” UNEportfolio, https://Calm-eng110.uneportfolio/citing-your-peers/.  Accessed September 29^th 2023.