An Essay
I'm wrote this following essay while practicing for the GRE General test. I was surprised to find out there's an essay component. Yikes! It took me a little too long to write - a bit more than 90 minutes, when there's only 45 minutes alotted. But I am feeling quite pleased with myself! I don't like being rushed when I write.... so coming up with something cogent and complete in 45 minutes is still going to be a challenge, no matter what the topic is.
ISSUE TOPIC = “Both the development of technological tools and the uses to which humanity has put them have created modern civilizations in which loneliness is ever increasing.”
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The idea has been suggested that new technology and expanding usage of technology has led to increasing loneliness. While this particular idea is not as far fetched, it reminds me of the absolutely ridiculous assertion that technology has made the poor so much worse of today then they had been in ages past. Before the industrial revolution, luxuries were mostly for the very rich few. The advent of mass production made luxuries more common, and therefore more visible, and raised the expectations of the masses. But technology has raised the standard of living for everyone. If we could somehow erase the technological progress of the last 300 years, then the result would be that the middle class would become what we presently consider "poor", those who are poor in today's reality would be even poorer, or perhaps not have come into existence at all!
Now perhaps you are thinking "what does wealth have to do with loneliness?" Well I believe that the loneliness was always there in some form -- people were just too busy working for their survival to notice it. Their purpose was survival. And once people became wealthy, and reasonably confident of survival, they had time to slack, to ponder, to notice (among many other things) that they are lonely (if in fact they are).
Even today, there are some people for whom loneliness is simply not a problem. They may be alone, but they are not lonely because they have their own internal purpose that carries them. In the past, this was nearly everyone, because everyone's time was consumed by activities essential to survival. But in our modern world of wealth, people don't have an obvious purpose. It requires more thought to find a meaningful purpose... and frankly, many people would rather not think on that level, and so they look to various others to find a purpose. Sometimes they actually find one they like in this manner, but more often than not, they don't, and they interpret this as loneliness.
And that is the nature of this beast of an idea -- the idea that technology has led to more loneliness. It has not. It has merely led some of us to discover our state of purposelessness, which leads to the fruitless searching through other people, which in turn frequently ends in the despair we call loneliness. We can hardly blame technology or the use of technology for that, even if there is a correlation.
One more aspect bears mentioning. The recent strides in communications technology (the internet, email, cell phones) might have been expected to bring people together and DECREASE loneliness, but in fact, they have not. This is because the people willing to invest their energy in thought and the questioning and probing of their environments were for the most part always willing to do so -- and technology has made them even more successful as they exchange ideas. But most of the communications flying over the internet and cellphone bandwidth is just mindless chatter that has little to do with any meaningful purpose. The meaningful exchanges are there, and in greater numbers than in the pre-technology world -- but the people issuing those communications would not have been "lonely" in the pre-technology world either, and so they do not constitute a decrease in the loneliness of modern civilization.
In short, technology and loneliness have no significant cause/effect relationship.
ISSUE TOPIC = “Both the development of technological tools and the uses to which humanity has put them have created modern civilizations in which loneliness is ever increasing.”
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The idea has been suggested that new technology and expanding usage of technology has led to increasing loneliness. While this particular idea is not as far fetched, it reminds me of the absolutely ridiculous assertion that technology has made the poor so much worse of today then they had been in ages past. Before the industrial revolution, luxuries were mostly for the very rich few. The advent of mass production made luxuries more common, and therefore more visible, and raised the expectations of the masses. But technology has raised the standard of living for everyone. If we could somehow erase the technological progress of the last 300 years, then the result would be that the middle class would become what we presently consider "poor", those who are poor in today's reality would be even poorer, or perhaps not have come into existence at all!
Now perhaps you are thinking "what does wealth have to do with loneliness?" Well I believe that the loneliness was always there in some form -- people were just too busy working for their survival to notice it. Their purpose was survival. And once people became wealthy, and reasonably confident of survival, they had time to slack, to ponder, to notice (among many other things) that they are lonely (if in fact they are).
Even today, there are some people for whom loneliness is simply not a problem. They may be alone, but they are not lonely because they have their own internal purpose that carries them. In the past, this was nearly everyone, because everyone's time was consumed by activities essential to survival. But in our modern world of wealth, people don't have an obvious purpose. It requires more thought to find a meaningful purpose... and frankly, many people would rather not think on that level, and so they look to various others to find a purpose. Sometimes they actually find one they like in this manner, but more often than not, they don't, and they interpret this as loneliness.
And that is the nature of this beast of an idea -- the idea that technology has led to more loneliness. It has not. It has merely led some of us to discover our state of purposelessness, which leads to the fruitless searching through other people, which in turn frequently ends in the despair we call loneliness. We can hardly blame technology or the use of technology for that, even if there is a correlation.
One more aspect bears mentioning. The recent strides in communications technology (the internet, email, cell phones) might have been expected to bring people together and DECREASE loneliness, but in fact, they have not. This is because the people willing to invest their energy in thought and the questioning and probing of their environments were for the most part always willing to do so -- and technology has made them even more successful as they exchange ideas. But most of the communications flying over the internet and cellphone bandwidth is just mindless chatter that has little to do with any meaningful purpose. The meaningful exchanges are there, and in greater numbers than in the pre-technology world -- but the people issuing those communications would not have been "lonely" in the pre-technology world either, and so they do not constitute a decrease in the loneliness of modern civilization.
In short, technology and loneliness have no significant cause/effect relationship.