Invent Your Own Technology :: Writing Essays

Invent Your Own Technology When my grandmother used to tell me that I took everything for granted, I think that she was right but in an even bigger way than she could have imagined. This experiment could be compared to when we would lose our electricity as a result of a storm. While this loss really only lasted a couple of days, it seems like eternity when you are without such modern conveniences such as a refrigerator, a microwave, and even your blow-dryer. Sometimes, it is hard to really understand the connivance of something until you are left without it. This assignment was on my mind for days. As we were discussing what this project would entail, the wheels in my head started turning and even before leaving class that day, I had a good idea of what my utensil would be. However, the tricky part came when I had to find the material to write on. I want to begin with what I found to use as my utensil. Knowing that I had to give up my trusted PC, I began to think of ideas that would make a good substitute. To accomplish this, I looked to see what was done in the past. As Dennis Baron states, as far back as Plato and Socrates, there was no other way of recording thoughts, etc., than the memory. â€Å"†¦Writing itself was once an innovation strongly resisted by traditionalists because it was unnatural and untrustworthy. Plato was one leading thinker who spoke out strongly against writing, fearing it would weaken our memories† (Baron 39). To think that something that we do on a daily basis was at one point in time labeled controversial is hard to imagine. I could not envision what I would accomplish without the â€Å"innovation† that was writing. To think of writing as an innovation or technology is baffling to me, and to fear it, none the less is a concept that we today could not understand because of our dependence on the technology. However, I think that Plato and others of his time hold a strong argument that the loss of memory is an issue to consider. Think of the fact that in many cases, the purpose of writing is to preserver the memory, for example: note taking and writing in journals.