I Miss Paper!

You might be wondering what the post title actually means. Yes, I miss paper! I miss the feel of having a paper in my hands while I read it. It has been ages since I read news from a newspaper. I feel that in my life for the past few years, I have stopped using paper altogether. I have been doing my assignments in word documents as I have to submit softcopies only. I have been reading news from online websites. My social life is extensive mainly because of social networking sites. Otherwise, I would not have as many friends as I have right now on Facebook!

Where is this leading us? What is going to happen in the future if this continues? Are we really progressing towards success or failure? We seem to be moving too fast, we have lost track of whether we are moving in the right direction. I feel that our development is not sustainable. 

It is predicted that every year the power of computers keeps doubling. That is an exponential growth, unimaginable! Not only that, the price of that computer will also keep decreasing. Four years ago I bought a dual core Intel processor laptop for $2,500 (it was an amazing laptop that is still working, never once got spoiled!), and 2 months back I bought an Intel core i5 processor laptop for $1,600. Power is greater, but price has decreased. Soon, we will have a computer with the power of the human brain, but only a $1,000 worth! What will happen after that? Will humans become obsolete? 

I read an article, 'How the internet makes us stupid'. An excerpt from the article reads,

Greenfield concluded that ''every medium develops some cognitive skills at the expense of others''. Our growing use of screen-based media, she said, has strengthened visual-spatial intelligence, which can strengthen the ability to do jobs that involve keeping track of lots of rapidly changing signals, such as piloting a plane or monitoring a patient during surgery. But that has been accompanied by ''new weaknesses in higher-order cognitive processes'', including ''abstract vocabulary, mindfulness, reflection, inductive problem solving, critical thinking, and imagination''. We're becoming, in a word, shallower.

This article makes me wonder if I have become shallower as well! Because I am quite a heavy user of the internet. If you ask me to categorise my daily activities, the time I spend with internet in front of me would take the majority of the day. Not because I have nothing else better to do. But because my world has been superimposed upon the computer screen! My study materials are there, my friends and family are there, my music is there, my entertainment is there... Everything is here on the internet. I wonder sometimes if I can live without the internet, and I think I can, but not for long! Maybe I can go without internet and computer if there is something else in 'real life' that is taking away all my attention for a length of time. If that is the case, then yes, I can live without the internet. 

We have stopped watching TV, and we are instead watching it on the Net. We don't read newspapers, but we read it on the Net. We don't go out for movies these days, we watch it on the Net. It is scaring to think about the future, if this continues. Maybe in the future, we don't have to go to school for education, we can learn everything online! Maybe people might get married online! What else, I wonder?