On June 6th 2010 Matt Richtel`s essay 'Hooked on Technology and Paying a Price' was
published in the New York Times. This informative essay follows the life of Kord Campbell who
a few years back had missed a very important email due to all the other distractions of being
online. Richtel explains that when you go online to look something up it does not take very long
to find an answer. In a matter of seconds millions upon millions of answers pop up on your
screen. You basically have the world at your fingertips. His essay is influenced on Kairos, stasis
and the use of a real life person to argue that the world has become too attached with technology
and eventually we will all end up paying the price. Richtel`s main argument is that technology
has changed not only the way people communicate and find information, but also the way we
think.

First I would like to begin naming the cons that technology has on our everyday life. In
the past few years, deaths due to texting and driving have rapidly increased. According to a study
by Cohen Children's Medical Center, 'Texting while driving is now the leading cause of death
among teenagers ' surpassing drinking and driving.' This shows that we cannot even do a simple
task like driving without getting the urge to text someone or look on social media to see what
everyone is up to. In addition, Virginia Tech studies show drivers are 23 times more likely to be
in an accident if they are texting while driving. In the years when my parents went
to school, the only phones that existed were home phones therefore when they were in school
they did not have the issue of students texting in class. Even the movie theatres now have to
enforce viewers to put their phone away to not distract other movie goers. This argument is very
urgent because this generation of people needs to realize that if we let technology run our lives
we will exclude or even completely block out our families and everyone around us. We will lose
the sense of being human if we let computers and smartphones do the simple things that we can
do for ourselves. Although technology has been a wonderful invention and has guided the 21st
century into a lot of other amazing inventions, we need to take a step back and realize when
enough is enough. Richtel mentions that Campbell's family clearly notices how he is 'always
on' and his 8 year old daughter playfully tells her father that ' he favors technology over family'.
Another con of technology is how effective it is in social media networks
such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These networking sites allow for users to display info
about themselves and put it out there for the world to see. This relates to Kairos because of all
the recent news about celebrities` iCloud account being hacked and private pictures released all
over the internet. This shows how whenever you have something on your phone there's a slight
chance it could be hacked at any point and spread throughout the internet. Once something is on
the internet, it will remain there forever. This generation's youth has to embrace that the world is
not a great place, and there are bad people all over trying to steal people's identity or even credit
card info. For instance, by being at Starbucks and using their Wi-Fi, your personal information
could easily be stolen from your computer. There are so many tech savvy people who know their
way into other people's hard drive and can basically access any information they want. Privacy is
a very big issue, and due to all the apps and personal data we have on our phones if we are not
careful, this could happen to us. Such as identity theft or just someone hacking into your bank
account or worse opening an account on your name causing you debt. Even though this is the
worst case scenario, people who distribute these products such as the android market and apple
should have figured out by now how to keep peoples` stuff private and make it more complex for
others to break into so that these things don't occur. After the iCloud incident, Apple 'has
reportedly patched a security gap that could have allowed hackers to access iCloud accounts'.

On the other hand, technology is a very helpful tool when used appropriately.Richtel
exclaims, 'For better or worse, the consumption of media as varied as e-mail and TV has
exploded. In 2008 people consumed three times as much information each day as they did in
1960'. Some examples include when communicating with friends and
family over a networking site or even email. Or when doing research for your own pleasure or
for school work. We also use these things for being able to access things such as your bank
account, email, Facebook page, the New York Times newspaper web edition, or even the
fandango app that displays the show times for movies. Another wonderful app is the global
positioning system or GPS. This hands down in my opinion is a very helpful tool that everyone
can use. I'm sure everyone hates getting lost or having to ask strangers for directions, and this
makes it so easy to find friends' houses or even restaurants. It is also better than trying to read an
actual map to figure how to get somewhere. Now you simply type in your phone where you want
to go, and in an instant it will guide you through how to get there. And there are other great apps
that come with smartphones that make our lives much easier. A great example is the calculator,
which helps me on a daily basis when I am trying to see how much money I have spent or have
left over. Another is the calendar on your phone which is wonderful because it reminds you of all
the things you have to do that day, and you can set up reminders to make sure that you do not
forget. The camera works similarly; this generation is obsessed with taking pictures and what is
now known as a 'selfie', in other words, when you take a picture of yourself. The camera on our
phones not only allow us to take pictures but they can be used to post on Instagram or Facebook.
If you have an iPhone you can FaceTime or Skype with friends and family. Correspondingly
other apps that make the camera useful are apps like Snapchat, Vine and WhatsApp. Snapchat
consists of sending pictures back and forth with friends. Vine allows you to record a video in a
matter of seconds and post online or send to friends, and likewise with WhatsApp it's used for
instant messaging and also sending attachments like videos and pictures. When you think back to
15 years ago, none of this existed or was even thought about. I think back to my childhood and
how I would spend every day outside with my friends until it got dark or it was time for dinner.
Now my 12 year old sister barely goes outside and would rather stay inside texting her friends or
being involved with the computer. This makes me so sad, to think that my sister who is only 7
years younger than me can live in a world so drastically different than the world I grew up in. As
Laura Bakst a high school senior in New York exclaims in the Woodbury Gazette page online,
'Yes it is convenient, but avoiding real dialogue with other people so often must have
some sort of a social effect on the young. It certainly effects our education. I cannot even
begin to count how many lessons have been interrupted by teachers yelling at students for
texting. It has created an entirely new and more efficient distraction, a more advanced
and bothersome version of the traditional passing of notes. Students sit in class on their
phones texting each other, playing games, and even updating their Facebook information,
all while they are supposed to be learning. I can't help but think that in my parents' era,
people absorbed much more of what was taught to them without all the disruptions of
technology'

In conclusion, Richtel does a good job on reaching out to his audience and stating his
views on how he feels that this issue of being too hooked on technology affects everyone. He
gives great examples of how they are useful and also when they become more of a burden. This
issue is also tied to the topic of how texting while driving has become more dangerous and has
caused more deaths in recent years than driving while intoxicated. Since this is such an urgent
issue it should be a wakeup call to not only young people but also adults who have gotten
vigorously attached to their precious devices and cannot seem to function without them. My
stand on this issue is that yes, technology is a wonderful thing that helps people do more things
and have easier access to information of any kind. Yet, there is a fine line between using your
devices for work or school and using them just for games and to post pictures online. This takes
away communication with people and friends and family. You do not want to choose a phone
over having real relationships with people and communicating face to face with others. We
should take a stand and fight this before it becomes a bigger problem. This can happen in small
ways, like putting your phone up at dinner time or putting your phone somewhere that it cannot
be reached when you are driving so that you don't have the urge to get it, use it, and cause harm
to yourself or others. Remember this impacts everyone, and it damages how we interact with
others, technology has become more or less like a drug. The definition of Merriam Webster
online defines a drug as 'any substance which has physiological effects when ingested or
otherwise introduced in the body'. Meaning when technology is introduced in the body it plays
with our brain chemistry. So next time you are headed to your computers or about to grab your
phone, stop and think. Is this really necessary or is there anything more productive I could be
doing?

