by Lam Luu

Created on: March 07, 2009

You have heard it, haven't you, about the harm of technology? About the inability of college students with their calculators? About TV degrading the kids? About Internet corrupting English? A bit more dreamy, you have heard about how strong AI will one day rule the world, decimate humanity, haven't you? Technology is evil, or roots of all bad things in our culture, our life, our language. Oh, have you heard that the housing bubble also crashes because of technology? Because some stupid mathematician made a bold statement about his theorem, which failed to predict the bubble? See, even in the material realm, technology is harmful. Deadly harmful. Or is it?

I always find it weird to blame technology for anything, be it good or bad. In the past, we glorify technologies as the reason for economic rise. Now, we condemn it for economy downturn. The same thing, but once good, now bad, once angel, now devil. Similarly, once upon the time, the Internet was hailed as the door way to true intellectual freedom. It was said to solve the problem of tyranny of all kinds, be it majority or minority, and that Internet will provide us will the wealth of information that will make us much more civilized. Now, the Internet is seen as root of all evils in the world, including, but not exclusively, terrorism, broken English, lack of exercises, low productivity, etc. etc. etc. The same network, the same protocol, the same hardware. Once, it was our savior; now, it is our most dreaded enemy.

As it turns out, people still use technology to empower their mind. Sounds weird to you? Imagine this: how much efforts does it take to show you how cute a penguin is, using only static images, text, and no sound? With television, that's like 1 minute. In mere an hour, you can see much of the wonder of our mother nature. Frankly, after watching a Discovery program, the only thing I want to do is to run outside, breathing the amazing air, watching the magnificent sky, and enjoying the beautiful nature. No amount of text, or even static images, can pump such emotions into me in such a short period of time. Now, I have more time to walk on the soft grass, to feel the breeze, to dig into the ground, to warm under the sun.

Or, let's talk about the Internet. Just imagine how much does it cost you to buy the latest books or journals to learn about the newest discovery. You can now get that for free from the Internet. Plus, you must be in a distant country to feel the importance of the Internet: sometimes,

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