Aidan Skelly Blog 1

Technological determinism is a very interesting concept. The idea that the technology that we use has a major impact on how our society advances is amazing. We never think about it, but imagine yourself ten years ago. How difficult was life without your smartphone? What about when it took about 3 minutes to load a webpage on the computer? Could you imagine how frustrated you would be now if your computer took that long to load just a simple webpage? These types of advances in particular have changed our patience as a whole. If we are out and about and have a question, what do we do? We instantly google it. Years ago, we couldn't do that. If nobody around us knew the answer, we would have to wait to find it out later. We can no longer wait for things. We have grown to desire everything right then and there. Society has grown so attached to our cell phones that people are willing to wait outside for hours just to get the newest cell phone. On top of making us impatient, cell phones have made us severely introverted. Whenever someone is either alone, or in an awkward scenario, they instantly pull out their phone. Why? Because it gives them something to do other than socializing. Think about the last time you sat in a lecture waiting for the class to start. Did you talk to anyone or did you just sit on your phone or laptop? Probably the latter. Think about how many friends you could have if you used your phone as a supplement to communication, not the only means. If instead of pointlessly looking at who ate what on instagram, you talked to someone and made a new friend, then used your phone to get in touch with that person. But we don’t do this because we allow technology to shape our culture.

            I mentioned previously how long it used to take to load a webpage, which is actually an interesting process. To think that the information of the page we visit has to travel nearly all across the world, 3 minutes actually isn’t that slow. But since then, it has now gone down to about 3 seconds, sometimes less. It is incredible to think that every time we open a webpage, a signal is sent out requesting access to that page. Once that signal is processed, the page is then broken up into thousands of tiny little pieces and then sent right back to us. How far we have come is mindboggling. We went from having the internet specifically meant for military communication, to it becoming a major part in nearly everybody’s life. Although it took almost 35 years to become publicly available, it has since grown and evolved so much more into what it is today.