I would like to say that this is an essay in response to what I’ve been hearing by various people on how technology turns teens into drones that never want to participate in anything without a direct use of technology. Whoever is reading, do not take this as chauvinism, targeting those people. It only stimulated me to write about my point of view on the subject.

I have a more contractive point of view towards technology. First, I believe the perspective stated is overtly extreme in its proclamations. I have empirical insight into what technology does on teens from being with growing young adults around my age. They use portable devices a lot, but I hear them speak about doing activities outside the house constantly. In fact, most kids I know from my school are not materialists, sure they love their Facebook and Twitter, but I always catch a couple of words about going out to play sports, going to the movies, parties, parks, and of the like. Notwithstanding the fact that materialism is growing exponentially, many teens I know realize that technology is a sword to be wielded with intelligence and skill. It is inevitable, in a cosmo- teleological sense, that some people will have to be the bad examples to show the rest of society what not to do. And you know what I mean, the “idiots” that literally give themselves over to the Internet. That is not to say however, that cyberspace is what humans have created as Hell. If anything, these “examples” reveal that the users themselves are the cause of their own misfortune and inauthenticity. It is improbable, even somewhat rash, to say that technology itself is the cause of immediate gratification. For technology has no conscious and because it has no conscious it is impossible for it to have the organic malice to mind wipe young folk and make them want to become materialists. Because people are gifted biologically in the brain to have conscious, it is in their own doing that they become techno- indulgent.

Humans being humans are bound to have inspiration, a desire sparked by another individual. I believe that this is a type of nurture. And by this claim, I will go on to say that it is possible that another person can make the materialist become materialist. Classically, this can be reinterpreted as conformity. The “I want to do that, look like that, move like that” because the influencer is “cool”. And by means of “cool”, I mean an aspect prescribed to someone that has something that the influenced doesn’t. An all too common scenario is wanting to attract the opposite sex. In the case of technology, and in particular, to teen tech: phones and Internet, what makes someone “cool” is by how much attention that kid gets. And so this could be a more psychological reasoning behind the user’s self-made subjection to technology. The other one, which also has to do with this, is peer- pressure.

The typical nurture involving parenting is yet another way which leads to the misuse of technology, once again in particular, the Internet and portable devices. In the doctrines of parenthood, it is warned indirectly that the child will play out whatever is not ruled on. Now don’t get me wrong, there are very mature people. I for one, without bragging, have proven to my parents that I have the common sense not to search the Internet without a mind compass. On the other hand, I do recall them teaching me the craft of being a user. Thus, it is as difficult to say as to admit to myself what trouble I could have gotten into had they not said a word. So to be safe, it is best to teach children rather than handing over the laptop and walking off. Teaching prevents dumb materialism.

Speaking about technology in general, it is a form of progressivism. And to attack or oppose technology is to hinder that type of progressivism. In its anatomical definition, progressivism is the practice of advancement. It is natural for humans to want to explore unknown, groundbreaking ideas, and eventually formulate them. So humans should deprive themselves of such exploration? Technology is human creation. It is ,perceptively, art. With different forms of art come different forms of danger. Dangers will inevitably come with each revelation. Literary and social progressivisms have and will cause violence. All in the same, scientific progressivisms have and will cause ill use and malfunctioned catastrophe. These progressivisms as their abstract selves are not at fault. Technology is not at fault. All humanity is at fault because we are the ones that created these abstractions. Once something is conjured, there is a certain craftsmanship to be mastered that cohesively must go with it in order to minimize negative impact and consequence.