Winston

Yesterday, I was explaining our midterm to my family and told them about the man in Dunkin Donuts. My aunt proceeded to tell me that when they were my age, they got along just fine without cell phones and that I probably would've been more inclined to have a conversation with a stranger sitting by me, instead of texting a friend. My parents and my aunt and uncle all agreed cell phones and Facebook have revolutionized how we communicate with each other and that they've caused the art of conversation to die. Now, there may be some truth to this. I've talked to many teachers that have found that kids are typing "ur" instead of "your" in their papers, so maybe it is affecting students' grammar. While we were talking about this, I began to think about Winston. Cell phones and Facebook aren't revolutionary technologies; they're evolutionary. The cell phone was modified from the telephone and Facebook stemmed from the internet, AOL instant messaging, and Myspace. They are evolutionary products that came from inventions that have value in society. So, I don't completely agree with my family because these technologies are just helping us evolve. Yes, my generation communicates a bit differently than theirs, but we still know how to have a conversation with someone face-to-face.

Cell phones, in particular, have become social necessities. People need to get in touch with others very quickly from all over the world because our society has been globalized. Social circumstances have changed and cell phones have stemmed from those changes and many scientific advances. Cell phones and Facebook are user friendly and fun; they are accelerators and have become important in every day life. At the Honors Conference, the speaker for The Outdoor Classroom, asked us to take out our cell phones. At first, I thought she was going to ask us to turn them off, but she didn't. We were actually asked to do a survey by texting our answers to a certain number. Our answers automatically appeared on the projection screen that was attached to the speaker's computer. I thought this was pretty cool and a very evolutionary way to learn. I think that technology today is helping us evolve the way in which we communicate and hasn't revolutionized or destroyed the way we talk to one another.