Over the past week I have been
thinking about all the different technologies I come into contact with every
single day. Some of the very prominent ones are in work and school. I'm a
shift leader at a Dunkin' Donuts, and recently we have changed our
menu boards inside from the standard plastic and cardboard to four flat screen
monitors. One of the screens specifically shows all the new products by
overdramatically placing piece of sausage on an english muffin and following
that up with a nice
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| Iced Coffee and Iced Latte |
refreshing hazelnut or french vanilla swirl iced coffee
with all the condensation just running down the side, in an effort to sell more
of certain products. Also the terminals we have for typing in orders are all
touch screen and have all the prices stored with tax automatically added on. It
is no longer necessary to try and perform math on your own, use a calculator,
or write down the orders. We have a drive-thru where as soon as a car pulls up
a sensor sets off a noise in our wireless headsets to alert us of the cars
presence, while at the same time starting a timer to keep track of how long it
takes for each cars order to be served. In the dorms at school we have multiple
showers and sinks all with hot or cold water in a matter of seconds. When
returning back to the dorm there is a scanner that reads a little micro-chip in
our student ID's that grants us access to the lobby and then a set of two
scanners to either use the elevators or enter the first floor hallway. In the
classroom we can use a blog as a group discussion where every student is able
to express their thoughts at the same time, rather than having to wait your
turn to speak. With BOLT, professors can issue homework assignments,
quizzes, and tests online for students to complete and submit, without ever
having to print out a single page.
Having
been born in 1993, I started out in the very beginning of this new age of
technology. Having sat down to just ponder how many different technologies I
rely on every single day, my mind is pretty well blown. So many things I just
take for granted and never stop to appreciate or think about why I'm able to
perform certain tasks with barely any time involved. Even now as I type there
are so many technologies helping me to accomplish this task. I have artificial
lighting so that I can continue to work at night without some kind of fire,
there is an air conditioning unit regulating the temperature in the room to
keep it a chill sixty-eight degrees, I had a refrigerator to make my iced
tea cold for drinking it, and I'm playing music on my computer while
also typing on a webpage which both use the WIFI. There are others that I
could list but that's not the point. The fact that I was able to list those
with minimal thought shows how dependent my generation is on all of the
technologies that have been available to us our entire life. Yes the use
of electricity for light bulbs has been around for many years now, but
certainly not the WIFI.
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| 1950's Washer |
When
growing up I really enjoyed going outside to play but when the weather didn't
allow me to I would just sit inside and either watch a VHS movie or play a
video game. As I became older I would want to stay inside more and more playing
PlayStation not really caring what kind of adventures my friends were
going on with their bikes. The older I got, the less thinking or
research in books I would have to do for school assignments. For me I have
seen, for me, huge technological jumps, but are not nearly as amazing to me as
they are for say my grandmother and father. When my gram was a child they only
had black and white TV's with three stations of viewing. All the telephones
were wired land lines so you were limited to the area of which you could be when
talking on the phone. She also had washer unit for clothes that
required her and her family to change out the water themselves
and only dried clothing by hanging them on a clothesline or inside if it was
too cold or rainy outside. My father had colored television and remembers
having the Atari system to play with on the TV. While this was a new and
exciting toy, he and his friends still enjoyed being outside far more.
The
biggest technological advance that I can think of is the smart phone and basically
having a computer at your fingertips constantly. For my gram it was colored
television and 8tracks, while for my father it was the Atari and the emergence
of video games. When asked if either of them started to rely on the new
technologies as they became available, both of them said no and that they just
waited for the older version to break or stop working before buying the newest
version. This is vastly different from myself where growing up I constantly
coveted the newest video game system or cell phone and would buy them if I was
able to. Both of them feel as though all the technologies they have witnessed
have benefited their lives, but they also felt some people rely on the new
technologies far too much. The technology with the biggest impact on my
life is steel roller coasters and the engineering involved in them, as
they allow you to be inverted and experience a far higher G-load
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| Steel Roller Coaster |
than
wooden coasters. I would ride a coaster every single day if I could just to
experience that adrenaline rush. For my gram the technology with the biggest
impact on her is the cell phone and my father the smart phone. Both of them
love having the convenience of calling people from almost anywhere they want to
and sending text messages. The smart phone capabilities allow my dad to work on
the go and look up necessary information for his customers that are purchasing
lumber. What is a technology that you find harmful? My answer to that question
is virus' in computers that can pull personal information. My father's answer
is satellites that can take pictures on command feeling as though that's an
invasion of privacy. My gram thinks that some of the television shows and
social media sites have hindered the growth of people that want to think
for themselves and function in what she sees as a normal way. In the future my
gram and I would both like to see advances in the technologies of health
science so that they are able to treat cancer in a completely and less harmful
way. My father would like to see technologies created for cleaner power sources
and the engineering of equipment to replace machines that rely on petroleum,
before it runs out.
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| Digital Brain |
There are
so many different kinds of technologies that have impacted this world and they
just seem to be growing at a phenomenal rate. I'm very glad that I am able to
witness all of these advances in technology. I do however hope that certain
advances don't eventually lead to people not doing anything for themselves and
relying on computers and other devices to do the thinking for them. Right now
it seems life society is teetering on the edge of that future. We have managed
to survive on this earth for a large number of years without certain
technologies. Although they can be very helpful to us, I just hope that we, as
a world population, don't come crashing down as a result of allowing
machines to replace what we know as human actions.
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