‘Atechnologic travesty

The reason why my generation is so lost

By Matthew Visser

rom watching the news, F something I have been doing

more often since the voting season kicked into high gear, I have come to the conclusion that my generation has lost its damn mind. Watching the news, I saw a young teenage girl lose herself, both physically and mentally, because she had lost her iPhone. While witnessing this, I mentioned to my friend that this was a clear example of why my generation, the technology generation, is slowly losing focus of what really matters.

The girl said that that day was

the worst of her life and that she was going to die, figuratively I hope, if she did not find her iPhone. Really? I can easily think of an endless list of worse things that could have happened to her that day. And this

is where I feel not only the teenage girl has lost her sense of what really matters in her life, but also others like her. The younger generations are growing up in a world that

is becoming centralized around technology and the ways it affects our planet. This seems to come at a loss of identity for the individual and causes them to become completely dependent upon said technology. As a result, we’re stuck with a bunch of

lost sheep who don’t know where to go or how to live without their plastic pieces of technology in hand.

Using the aforementioned girl as an example, it is obvious that as technology becomes more and more incorporated into the human race (even right now I am writing this article on a laptop when not even thirty years ago people were using typewriters), the idea of the individual begins to die out. People are losing

* touch with what it means to live

independently and for themselves. The reality is that the teenage girl is only one example of countless others who have become utterly dependent on technology for simple

Baier

things such as for how to get from one place to another. The introduction of GPSs and Google Maps has completely changed how people figure out directions on how to get places.

I say lose the hand held plastic pieces of technology and go back to how life was before they took over the pockets and purses of the world. This will not only show you how people lived and functioned back in the day, but give you an appreciation of what it is like to break free from the dependency of technology, even if it is just a little while.

Human on board

A stickler for stickers

By Jenn Markham

without seeing a “baby on board” sign

in someone’s car window. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the purpose for them. It’s not for when I’m slipping on black ice, my car is out of control and as I’m hurdling towards another car, I see a “baby on board” sign and swerve to miss it. No. It’s for the aggressive drivers who

I: rare that I travel anywhere by car

follow too closely, or speed to pass, or cut people off. Or people who do all of the above, such as on Monday when I was driving back from voting and someone

in a green minivan almost rear ended me, honked, passed on the right where there was no lane, and almost clipped a parked car (and mine) on his way in front of me because I was going thirty in a park zone. I wonder if that driver would have acted the same way if I were sporting a “baby

on board” sign? I would hope not.

The warning about babies feeds off our inert human instinct to think critically about our actions when babies, or even small children, are involved. But then again, shouldn’t we feel that way about all drivers and passengers? I don’t think I need to throw around statistics about negligence being a huge cause of fatal car accidents here. I wonder if any of the people causing those accidents

ever considered that they would be taking someone’s life, whether it be a toddler of three years or even someone of twenty? I’m not saying that parents should stop having “baby on board” signs displayed on their cars; I just don’t think reconsidering the level of due care - should be reliant on the age of the people involved. Let’s all just hang “human on board” signs in our cars and see where that goes.

13