Advancement of technology

On page 77 of Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" he writes "Now the mainstream is being diverted, quickly and decisively, into a new channel. The electronic revolution is approaching its culmination as the computer- desktop, laptop, handheld- becomes our constant companion and the Internet becomes our medium of choice for storing, processing, and sharing information in all forms, packed with the familiar symbols of the alphabet. We cannot go back to the lost oral world, any more than we can turn the clock back to a time before the clock existed. "Writing and print and the computer," writes Walter Ong, "are all ways of technologized the word"; and once technologized, the world cannot be de-technologized." To me, this part of chapter four was very powerful, it made me think of when I was younger and we had a computer monitor with a million cords and a tower and speakers that had to be connected, and then it made me think to now, where i am sitting at my desk with a laptop that has no cords unless the battery dies and speakers, microphone, and a camera are all installed with no extra cords. Monitors used to be bulky and now my laptop can't be more than a few inches thick. Every year companies come out with newer and "better" forms of technology, i can only imagine when my laptop will be so out of date that when i think back to using it, it will seem outdated. When Carr says that we cannot be de-technologized, to me, that means that once someone discovered what we could invent that there is no stopping the advancement of technology. It started with a typewriter, and from there the possibilities to where technology will take us are endless. Which is a scary though, to think that today, in 2012 we have all these systems of technologies that what will we have in say 20.. 30 years? Technology will keep advancing and it is also relied on for some, everyday activities. Writing an essay on white lined paper is unheard of today, essays are always suppose to be typed out and printed. So much has changed since i was a kid, and I'm only 18, so how much will things have changed when someone born today reaches the age of 18. It's pretty insane to think of all the advancements we've made so far and of what is yet to come. 

Michele Lemieux