The last week and a half has brought with it all the trials and tribulations of modern conveniences and technology. First a complete phone malfunction, then our web server appeared with some hitches and glitches, then to top it off my laptop got a virus which just seems irremovable for any point of time longer than a few minutes. Needless to say when your a person who’s life and job is web based most of the time, it can tend to send you into a tail spin and quickly throw you off your mark. Therefore let me first of all apologize for the lack of postings and ask you to bare with me as I sit hear vying for a few minutes on a borrowed computer. Secondly the frustrations of the past week have me once again thinking about isolation and how much we take for granted in our developed society.
Funny enough it appears it was just over a year ago that I was singing this sad old tune when I wrote the piece, One Day Without the Internet vs. A Life of Slavery, How Does Isolation Help it Spread?. Well here I am again feeling paralyzed by my lack of access to technology and once again reminded that no matter how cut off from the world I feel, I am more attached and aware of what is going on, what my rights are and still have more access than most. We no longer look at cell phones and computers as a luxury item, they are not event must haves, they have become daily necessities.
Our children take for granted their access to their computers, video games and see it as their right to have such “toys”, and often leave one to question if children are spending too much time on such devices and games, such I mentioned in the piece, Are Children Playing Enough?. However other children across the globe; walk miles to school, if their is one to walk to at all; calmer over even one dog eared book, which they will gladly share with all around them; children who treasure education like a jewel, as it is their ticket to freedom and escape from poverty…children who most often know little of computers and simply dream one day to use one.
A year ago it was big news to hear of wild and bright ideas to ensure that there was a laptop for every child, see articles such as; Laptops to Change the Future for Children in The Developing World? While the dream was brilliant it too was just that a novel idea that in reality would be met with more struggle than praise. While it is a fantastic dream to see that every child around the world is met with access to a computer and the internet, and undoubtedly this would only enhance lives and education, so would ensuring that every child is vaccinated, adequately fed, house and clothed. When my laptop is taken away I still have everything else, which is at least 90% more than countless children around the globe. Yet soon I will return to you in full speed writing away, and even I will quickly forget the trials of my briefly challenged existence with little access to a computer, and just as quick I will most likely find myself cursing the technology I have and wanting something better. For now we are left to wonder what the world would be like if we all had equal access to technology…
