I try to ignore threads like these, but I'm sorry, I just cannot.
First of all, technology doesn't DO anything. It's the people USING it that determine how they use technology. If a person uses their TV to watch garbage television, that is all on THEM, not the television set. How in the world can we possibly place blame on an inanimate object created by MAN?
Why don't we just blame cars next on our lack of using bicycles or walking to places?
Then we can blame many more things for the fact that they give us ADVANTAGES in life.
Whenever I see people say that ANY piece of technology is to blame for inactivity, I just have to sigh. Yes, it CAN lend itself to this, but the TV isn't holding a gun to your temple saying: SIT THERE AND BE A MINDLESS ZOMBIE.
WE choose how to use the technology.
So if a person sits there and watches The O.C., American Idol, and other countless crap, it's THEM, NOT the TV.
I watch Discovery Channel, the Travel Channel and other programs that can help me learn aroud the world out there.
The TV truly cannot be evil, nor can the internet. As humans, we possess the free will and the choice of how we can use these things.
n00bPimp said:
I'm also talking about those people whose could be happier and even healthier if it wasnt for tvs and computers. Technology depresses most of the population by setting standards on what you 'should' look like, how you 'should' live, and when you compare yourself and your life to these standards and you realize that you're not what you 'should' be, you get pissed off. It also depresses your body because technology promotes inactivity.
Technology doesn't depress people, it's the crappy ways it's USED and how people choose to interpret them that depresses the blue hell out of people. It doesn't set standards, PEOPLE set those standards... technology is just the medium. If TV's didn't exist, these standards would still be set through magazines, newspapers, WHATEVER. There will ALWAYS be standards set whether there is technology or not.
Technology does not promote inactivity.
If I sit at my TV and watch crap for 2 hours, I AM promoting my own inactivity.
But if I use those same 2 hours to do some Tae-Bo because it's raining outside and then to watch a program on Discovery about something really interesting, how is that promoting anything negative?
Frankly, I'd rather live in a hut, and off the grid. those people might do a lot of dirty physical labor and earn very little, but physical work is what our bodies where made for, our bodies werent made to sit on cubicles on all day for decades and decades. Plus since all the fancy things we own end up owning us, I'd gladly live a simple life where i 'm to focus on what really brings me happiness. THAT my friend is REAL freedom.
I have seriously been contemplating this, i just need to find out how its going to happen. And I want to make one thing clear, I'm not saying these things out of discontent or hatred for our current way of living, I'm saying them because I love the other option and I very much would enjoy it.
This is what REALLY kills me.
Don't talk about it in a self-righteous way, DO IT.
I just hate it when people say that they'd rather live in a world without technology... while posting about it on an online forum, in the Anything Else section.
Maybe this is not the case with you, but I've seen many people say this before, and it's usually the ones who wouldn't survive a week in the woods on a camping trip... with an RV.
I mean, what could possibly be the logistics of figuring out how to make it happen? Go talk to an Amish family and ask if you can move in for a month.