The iPerson

By Tyler F

It’s in stores everywhere but you can’t buy it -just as it’s in restaurants and you can’t eat it, and it’s everywhere you go though you might not see it. It’s something people carry with them yet it’s not a disease, despite it’s being infectious. And not many would call it epidemic though it has plagued most of our population. Have you guessed what “it” is? It is our problematic obsession with technology.

This is not a hard concept to grasp so let’s cut to the chase: technology has grasped our undividable attention and it is not about to let go. And of course -since we have all heard it before- too much can result in dependency, anxiety, insomnia, depression, chronic laziness, and whatever other psychological and sociological mix of disorders Web MD can concoct.

Hopefully the rest is something you haven’t heard before. Thinking of all the things that attracted our curiosity in the first place might contradict the bad, and cause a subtle change in heart.

Entertainment has definitely been an overwhelming factor. And this does not simply concern that twenty-minute “Angry Birds” respite in the restroom. It concerns videos conveying ideas, spreading humor, introducing fads and showing things a person might have never considered possible -had it escaped notice as a mere article in a local newspaper. Whether it has user-contributors such as Reddit or organized coverage such as The New York Times, it has made mountains out of ideas, every single stone of which can be accessed by the click of a button. And if you’ve ever played the game “scavenger hunt” -racing to reach a specific page on Wikipedia from a random one through hyperlinks within the text-, you know that the number of buttons is limitless.

Unfortunately, the benefits don’t negate the negative. Just like every other resource, it is there to be used but it can’t force you to use it in any particular way. The user must decide to either stick to a stream of links and suggestions or use the search bar. That “key word” your browser has been nagging you about takes a little more effort, but it allows opportunity to strike out in an individual direction.

Whether to be the used or the user of technology is ultimately a choice between wasting hours and losing sleep, or researching and creating. The first renders a person pale due to lack of sunlight and tired because of that vague brain-activity-stimulating light. The latter describes individuals who have gone out of their way to control the information they’re given. However, the latter may still be pale due to lack of sunlight.

Just like anything, there is an option to set it down. Consciously separating oneself from a task that consumes hours of every day is not easy, no matter the object itself. If you go without it and you are bored, anxious or especially empty feeling, it might be time to envision a different style of life. Particularly, from the one spent bent over a laptop screen.

Since you now know for certain that the power is at your fingertips; what button, if any, will you click next?

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