AM I BEHIND?

I was on the airplane coming back home from my study abroad trip to Costa Costa when I noticed a kid no older than ten years old using an iPad. Sitting there watching him experiment with the computer seeming to know exactly what he was doing was pretty strange to me. Here I am at twenty years old just trying to become accustomed to Apple products and the kid on the plane appeared to have it mastered. At that moment I thought to myself, "Am I behind?"

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised by the kid on the plane with all the new electronics marketed to the pre-teen age audience. Kids five years old and older are playing with their Nitendo DS and listening to their iPods. It's a definite upgrade from the Nintendo and portable CD players that I knew when I was their age. With all the new advancements and new technological domination experienced by the Apple company, I guess it's only normal for me to feel left behind as a PC girl in a Apple products/Mac world. Who knows.

I now see that we must not allow ourselves to be left behind a fast paced technologically driven world. It all still seems so strange to me where education is moving now. Book companies have made their books available online in their entirety and libraries are even moving towards allowing people to view books in their catalog digitally. Although, as a student it makes what I have to do easier and my pocket happier, but what's next? Will students be required to only use their textbooks over the internet? Will learning become totally digital? These types of technological advancements don't seem like much of an advancement at all once you think about it. People seem to become completely withdrawn from the world around them and stuck in a cybermania with their electronics. It reminds me of how my friends look once they've become glued into their iPods and iPhones. They look like they've been sucked into a cyberplace of no return. When you speak, they don't hear you. Not even the loudest noise can pull them away from the screen!

However one may view the outcome or current state of the technical world, the fact remains that all of this is happening now without any signs of slowing down. It's either we "advance" with it or be left behind.