I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords

A couple of weeks ago, I was at P. F. Chang's with my family, and it was a pretty normal dinner, yet I couldn't help but notice the table next to ours. Sitting there was a guy and a girl on a date, but it was the most bizarre date ever. The whole time I was peaking over at them, they didn't speak a single word to each other. No, they were busy typing away on Facebook with their phones. I couldn't tell if on Facebook they were chatting with each other, though it would be hilarious if they were; this incident highlights the major issue many have with technology — people are over relying on it and losing track of reality.

Technology was created with first and foremost the goal of helping people, and it has done that job splendidly. Just about everything we do has been facilitated by technology, from the alarm clock in the morning to the late night television shows, heck the keyboard I'm typing on right now is technology. Helpful as it is, more and more people are now relying on technology to solve the most basic of things. At the rate it's going, the future could be a place where people are whipping out calculators to find out what is 6 plus 7. It's kind of like a double-edged sword, making our lives easier, yet always carrying the danger of necessity.

But to some people, that is all technology do for us, to make us lives easier, and I can see why they would hate it. But to other people, it opens up a treasure trove of knowledge and information. It connects the entire world, allowing events from all over the globe to be recorded and shared, in turn exposing us to perspectives in a way never possible before. If I had to choose one thing that had the most impact on my outlook of life, it wouldn't be movies, it wouldn't be books, it would be the internet. If it wasn't for the internet, how else would I have known that just last week, a 24 year-old father died of a toothache because he didn't have insurance? Or that a man in North Carolina got his legs broken by a cop, then was sent to jail because he wouldn't stand in court? This kind of information gives me a new viewpoint of current issues, something I certainly would not have experienced if it weren't for technology. Getting rid of technology is not the solution, but perhaps letting go of the reliance on technology and instead finding a healthy balance between it and real life is.

Though as dangerous as technology may be, it has nothing on ninja bear.