Technology is Cool

Today during my class discussion about The Casual Vacancy, we talked about the presence of technology in novels and then went off on a tangent about technology is general. Some of my classmates gave the stereotypical answer that people my age like to give: “I’m glad I grew up when I did! It was the golden era!! I still got to play outside instead of on an ipad!!!” I agree that growing up with technology has been kinda cool. I can clearly recall every VHS and cassette tape I have, but for the most part I had the ease of CDs and DVDs. I agree that there are some kids probably do spend more time on technology than is “good.” But here’s the thing: there are plenty of 21 and 22 year olds who spent too much time using technology, too. Sure, the technology looked different. It was sitting in front of Blue’s Clues for 7 hours instead of those YouTube channels that have videos of other kids playing with toys. The technology looked like Oregon Trail games and Mavis Beacon teaches typing. Games on floppy discs that my classmates said they still remember learning from. So, classmates, if your computer games taught you your fundamental knowledge of geography, why wouldn’t you want children today to be educated by their technology? It is SO COOL that children have little pieces of technology in their hands that can teach them all sorts of COOL things. Parents have always had to limit how much time children do things. I don’t think learning is something that should be limited—even if it’s on technology.  

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