Do advancements equate to progress?

In an era where technological advances are seemingly constant, many people assume that knowledge is sought out by those who live with computers in their pockets and the universe at their fingertips. It is true that the 21st century world that we are currently immersed in brings with it endless opportunities to seek out knowledge. Two decades ago, few people would have been able to predict that encyclopedias, dictionaries, newspapers, and magazines would be so readily accessible to anyone with the ability to use the Internet. Or that the findings and discoveries of our educators, astronomers, mathematicians, scientists, and journalists could become any computer user’s afternoon reading material. And despite all of this, observations of the society we reside in have begged the question: Do advancements always equate to progress?

Of course, we must limit our search to the demographic of which I can be held as a reliable source for representing: kids, teens, and young adults. Being a seventeen-year-old high school student, I can safely recall and analyze behaviors that I have noticed from my friends and classmates.

I’ll begin with an observation that has, over some time, become my biggest pet peeve. And that is that a shockingly huge number of today’s students don’t know simple grammar and spelling. And in their defense, why should they? There was a time, in some distant past when we wrote down lists and ideas and stories. We passed notes to each other and spoke to each other face to face. Today, we have notepads and word processors behind electronic screens. We type out everything we think and when we are erroneous, which is often, there’s a red squiggly line underneath our words to tell us what we meant to say. “Spell check” has produced a generation of kids who are, dare I say it, ignorant to the principles of the English language. For the last time, definitely is spelled d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y, your and whose indicate possession, and anytime you do anything, you do it well NOT good.

Another way that advancing systems of technology have thwarted true progress is through communication. Many people would argue that the technological revolution that we have witnessed in the past several years has improved communication for all who choose to utilize these technologies. I disagree. Certainly, advancements such as text messaging, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, FaceTime, and Instagram have changed the way we communicate with one another. But is it really all for the better?

When I was about seven years old, I had a pen pal. She was the mother of one my mother’s friends and loved writing letters. Every few months, I would receive a letter from her and write back, detailing and describing the ups and downs of my second grade life and eagerly inquiring about the ups and downs of my pen pal’s very different life. Through those letters, I was able to learn about someone who I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten to know. Fast-forward ten years when I’m trying to send thank you notes to relatives for all my holiday and birthday gifts. As I finished addressing each letter, I realized that I didn’t even know which side of the envelope the stamp was supposed to go on.

We don’t send mail anymore. It’s a fact backed up by figures that predict that the US Postal Service will be over 200 billion dollars in debt over the next decade. We email family members, we Facebook message old friends, we text our pals, and we use Twitter to see what everyone is doing at all times. If you can easily recall the last time you had a formal, face to face, insightful conversation with someone else then you are one of a select handful who still find value and meaning in using our ordinary voices to talk about something. What ever happened to letters? To phone calls? To meetings and visits that are not conducted by a webcam? I don’t know about you, but I miss these “old-fashioned” forms of communication and I think that the process of communicating used to be much more meaningful and heartfelt then just clicking a send button.

I have an extensive list of additional reasons why technology has seemingly stopped progress in its tracks, but rather than bore you with that, I will try to wrap it up. And to do so, I have to clarify that I do not think that technology is a destructive force, nor do I think that it is solely responsible for the problems that exist in today’s young adults. In fact, I believe that technology has the potential to transform the world in positive ways.

I just think that many people, especially teenagers, don’t harness that potential and put it towards the expansion of knowledge. The wonder of the Internet brings us all the opportunity to learn, grow, and contribute. Articles, discoveries, research studies, history, and an endless plethora of facts are available to us in the blink of an eye if we want to seek them out. And that’s a huge if. Because instead of reading an article about the senatorial vote on government spending, we read an article about Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy. And instead of watching a video of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech, we watch a video of people falling off of tables.

Stephen Covey said that there will always be three constants in life: change, choice, and principles. The change came first. We welcomed the Technology Age with open arms and discarded our old methods of life without thinking twice.

The choice came second. Technological advances in and of themselves did not promote or prevent human progress. They created a choice for us to make: do we want to take advantage of what we have access to and use it to gain knowledge and give back or do we want to use these advancements for unproductive entertainment? We are still all making this choice, each and every day.

 And next will come the principles. This country was built on a set of simple principles that all originate from one fundamental belief, that progress and progress alone will propel us into the future. Yes, the very same idea of progress that I keep talking about was brought to us by our founding fathers; the same founding fathers who shed their blood to fight our wars and who gifted us with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And with that, we attend to our social networking sites and our gossip blogs and our YouTube channels, never pausing to second guess anything that our computers can correct for us. And we ask ourselves, is this the progress that they would have wanted?