Do you have a love-hate relationship with technology, especially our laptops? I both love and hate it. There are great things about technology. Our generation wouldn’t know how to function without computers or cell phones. It has improved the ease of many necessary parts of life, such as looking for a job, banking or registering for classes (well, some might argue about that last one).  In other ways, technology has complicated and cluttered our lives.

I don’t know if there are other campuses where every student receives a laptop, but I think it’s awesome that every student at Loras receives a laptop. It is useful when it comes to writing papers or researching. Here, though, it is also a distraction. It can be hard to focus on researching when the World Wide Web is right there, waiting to answer almost any question you have that is not related to the research you should be doing. It is overwhelming to have so much information at your fingertips. Looking up one thing can turn into 10. While even a few decades ago, people might have thought the idea of internet was crazy. Now we have almost any information available at our fingertips. You can find nearly any info you want in a matter of seconds or minutes. Who could have known? It really is amazing and a blessing. However, there are other annoyances that accompany technology.

Have you ever wished that your email inbox could just be totally empty? I definitely have! While I love getting new mail, I feel sometimes that I can never be totally disconnected from my email. There always seem to be emails that need to be answered. I have devised a folder system for all my emails, but now I have what seems like a billion folders. Especially in this beautiful spring weather, I hate being glued to the screen, writing papers or replying to e-mails. I sometimes wish that computers had never been invented. While e-mail has improved the ease of communication, it can be an annoyance and time-consuming.

In short, I love technology, and I hate it. This world is very technologically-based, which has improved the ease and quality of many aspects of our lives. In the future, though, I hope that the world can find a way to balance the use of technology and not need to be so dependent on it. Maybe we can become more connected with the greater world and each other than with technology. Now, I think it’s time I get off this computer and go outside.