Nick Kachmarik

Professor Jesse Miller

English 110

19 April 2025

Word count 1411

How to distract an entire generation

Over the past few months, we have followed a learning path on how to promptly associate information from multiple sources and blend them into a narrative of our own perception. By picking and choosing what type of information we want to associate with allows us to be precise in the topics and motives that guide us in creative writing. Each creator has a unique perspective on the way they write and over the length of the course, we have grown individually as creators and designers utilizing the tool known as a summary. By drawing on ideas from other authors, it opens the realm of brand-new takes and viewpoints. Of course, making sure to give the appropriate credit to the original creator, their products open the world to limitless opportunities of fresh ideas for creating a story. Kevin Kelly, the author of “Technophilia”, is a granulated twist on how human love for technology explores the limitless advantages and disadvantages that may come from having a global information database right at out fingertips. Kaia Anderson and Tyler Pellatier are student authors from the University of New England. In their passages about life with technology, they share ideas about growing up in this new age of opportunities that have evolved rapidly, with little to no slowing down in sight. In the education setting, students like us reflect on the work of others in many situations. Anything from a research proposal to computer science analytics, the use of previously created information to further better our knowledge of an individual topic is at an all-time high. From our time in class, we have moved into the world of summarizing ideas on how technology has changed our society, both as a whole, and the unusual impacts it has had on us individually. We as humans are in a constant cycle of evolution and growth, and we constantly explore for improvement and satisfaction when it comes to the needs and wants that we have in our tangible world. Part of it comes from the drive to become a better version of oneself, maybe it comes from a mindset of proving someone wrong through success. Wherever our ambition comes from, we all arrive at a place where we learn repetitive activities that drill the cadence of acceptance and summary into our minds, so that it can be repeated in a similar way in the future once we move on to bigger and better things.

The degradation of society and the interactions we have with each other cannot be pinpointed to just one thing like technology. It is almost an impossible statement to make just because we have nearly limitless access to online databanks with billions of pages of information that it is time for the downfall of human intellect. Just the idea that one thing could be that destructive, something that we created to aid us, not tear us down, challenges the concepts of what humanity truly sees in itself for wanting a new solution to already existing situations. These devices that we have in our pockets and that we carry around in backpacks give us so much opportunity to learn and grow and expand our roots of what we already know. These devices that are so powerful, they have more computing power than the Lego sets that sent the first men to the moon. These devices that can connect families together halfway across the globe from each other without any delay. These devices that have instant access to new information but can so easily distract and block out the reality around us. The reality which we are most certainly losing a grip on. Something so delicate and vulnerable, being cast aside for virtual information, invalid ideas, and dystopian-like futures promised to those who stay connected to their devices and disconnect from actuality. Kaia Anderson writes on the prospects of distractions in her everyday life. Although passionate about a healthy lifestyle, she has found herself in the middle of a generational dilemma. With new devices arriving every year, it has almost been second nature for people to buy the latest and greatest. Kaia, along with so many others, sees the detrimental problems these devices leave us with, with no real solution for the future. She writes about the constant urge to check her phone, scrolling through social media, or viewing old pictures to pass the time. She says it is, “Just something to distract me. I almost get consumed by anxiety when I don’t check my phone soon after hearing the buzz of a notification” (Anderson). This is the reality that this generation has come to. That being connected can and will be the only way to survive the day. Something that everyone must recognize as something truly detrimental to a society continually wanting to be the best.

Maybe the authors of the articles we have read are right in their ideas that technology is rusting away our infrastructure of knowledge. We used to say that it would be impossible for technology to become a dominating factor in how life can change. Kevin Kelly describes how the embraces we give technology through optimistic relations and a want for progression of societies is a classical rhapsody. His views indicate the thoughts that technology has gotten to a point where it interacts with us and grows, not in the way an advancement may be better than its predecessor, but a development of its feelings. Unlike what we believe the original plans for technologies were for us to interact with it for growth, Kelly is in belief that our creation has become biological, slowly changing overtime through self-testing and correction. This idea that “technology wants to be loved” (Kelly), a fascinating visual for how life-like this digital creation has become. Almost as if the Science Fiction movies we thought were from an ultra-advanced society and becoming our tangible existence. Just a short twenty years ago we were still trying to figure out how to open an email account. The first phones never had a screen that you could interact with, in most cases the whole phone weighed about three pounds. There was just a number pad and pick-up and end button. The only distraction came from the person on the other end never wanting to hang up. Yes, life may have seemed different then, maybe simpler. But credit is due to those who had the drive to advance the technology to make it better and stronger in so many ways.

Today, however, you can’t go more than ten minutes without thinking about any kind of technology. It is around every corner of life; from the ones we have on us to using one to complete an assignment on how technology distracts us. It is everywhere. And quite honestly, the future of tech use will only change from here on out. In a few short years, people think that schools will have AI robotics as teachers, giving full lessons to students. As a matter of fact, they have. Tyler Pelletier’s remarks from his that “My mother, who teaches 3^rd grade, called me up earlier in the year enthralled about a new program her school had shown them. This program was an AI powered report card system, allowing users to press a button under each student’s name and automatically generate a sentence that reflects their performance” (Pelletier). The program would essentially allow the teacher to instantly generate a simulated examination of the student’s grade. From the perspective of the teacher, Tyler’s mother, she might believe that this would immensely alleviate the time it would take to grade assignments and let parents know how the students are performing in the classroom. On the other hand, Tyler is in defense that this would create a massive tension between the teacher and the parents. He believes that since the records were digitally generated that they are not genuine and trustworthy from the teacher’s perspective. Personally, I would agree that this is a horrible idea. There should be no place on Earth where a fully sentient AI robot should be fulfilling the role of a teacher and giving out a mass amount of information. This situation would most certainly end in the complete destruction of all creative work and ideas for advancing human culture. We are already seeing the death of speech from the lack of communication between people. But if we begin to learn from robots, then the humanities will never be able to be reclaimed.

Works Cited

Anderson, Kaia. “Helping the Addict: A Call To Action.” UNEportfolio, https://miller-eng110-1.uneportfolio.org/2025/03/31/journal-23/ . Accessed 18 April 2025

Kelly, Kevin. “Technophilia.” The Best Technology Writing 2010, 31 Dec. 2017, pp. 289–301, https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300165654-021.

Pelletier, Tyler. “Technology: The Virus of Today.” UNEportfolio, https://miller-eng110-1.uneportfolio.org/2025/03/31/journal-23/ . Accessed 18 April 2025