The Fun They Had

Author's Note: Sorry for posting this late, I guess I forgot to post it all of this time. While I was writing this, I kept trying to think of how I could write about such a short story. Finally, I thought of this:


Can the advantages of having technology be taken too far? If you walk in to almost any classroom these days, you will find that you are surrounded with technology. If you ask almost any student if the use of technology is beneficial to learning, they will probably tell you that technology provides many advantages to the field of learning, and that it makes school more fun. Although this may be true, "The Fun They Had", is a good example of how too much technology can have a negative impact on our world.

One way that too much technology can be bad is that it causes a lack-of sociality. One-on-one learning, like the robot-teacher in the story, can be a beneficial method of teaching concepts. It allows the teacher to adapt their style of teaching to whatever way that particular student learns best. This, however, isolates that student from interacting with the other students in class, which is a very important part of building our social confidence. If nobody ever built up their social confidence, everybody would be shy, and never want to talk to anybody. It would make the world an extremely poignant place.

Can you imagine passing a bunch of people on the street, and not even your neighbors acknowledging you? It sure would make you feel socially isolated. If kids learn to interact with other people at an early age, it will make communicating much easier for the rest of their life. If you don't believe this, just look at the world around you. Many people interact with others through technology. Text-messaging, e-mails, and IM are all examples of this. Most people use technology because it is quick and easy, and they don't want to spend the time actually talking to the person. Not that this is always bad. Sometimes you need to get in touch with someone that is away somewhere, and you can't talk face-to-face with them. Sometimes all you need is an actual chat with someone. It can boost your social awareness, and you can get to know someone better than you would in a text or e-mail. In total, this just goes to show that technology can harshly limit our social skills, and it is important to take a break from technology every once in a while, and actually chat face-to-face with someone.

Another reason why technology can have a negative impact is because of reliability. Usually, technology works well. But sometimes, it can have problems. Luckily, we don't rely on technology so much that we can't do thing the old-fashioned way. These days, if your computer is broken, and you need to type something, you simply write it on paper. In the future, if we rely too much on technology to do things for us, we are putting ourselves in a risky situation. If all of a sudden the technology malfunctions, and we don't have a different way of doing things, we get stuck in a situation where we have nothing to do, kind of like how Tommy didn't have a teacher for a month because his robot teacher broke. It just goes to show that although technology can provide a fast and easier way of doing things, we shouldn't rely on it too much because it isn't foolproof!

Although there are many advantages of using technology, it can still be taken too far. Although technology can be very tempting, we should remind ourselves of the old-fashioned way to do things. We should practice doing things without technology, and talk to people more often. Sometimes, all you need is a simple break from the rapidly growing world of digital screens and codes. Just take a break from technology, and do things on your own. There are many reasons why technology could be taken way too far, and these are just a few of them.