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Regarding Technology (a departure from WebDev)

I'm departing from WebDev for a minute to blog about technology. I'm as guilty of over-indulging in technology as anyone, especially given that my career demands a technology overload. Today at noon is the solar eclipse and that prompted me to think about the past and the future. I started to think about where the world stands and a song came up on my playlist that seemed perfect for my mood.

 27 years ago, Bad Religion wrote a song about the current generation of kids. It would be prophetic if it weren't for the fact that the trend had already begun back then. In any event, it seems now is a good time to look back at the lyrics:

 'Cause I'm a twenty-first century digital boy
I don't know how to live but I got a lot of toys
My daddy's a lazy middle-class intellectual
My mommy's on Valium, so ineffectual

 What child these days does not have multiple devices to play with? Gaming systems, television, computers and tablets are in nearly every home. Kids have so many toys...but have they forgotten how to live?  Kids are failing to develop the skills that they will need to become productive and happy adults. And among today's adults, we find that armchair activism and anti-depressant abuse is rampant.

 The last line of this epic song pretty much sums up the millennial generation:

 Everything I want, I really need.

 On the bright side, Bad Religion was all about irony and it seemed clear to them at the time that technology was going to affect kids for both good and bad.  The question we have to ask ourselves is whether we have done an adequate job of tempering the "bad" effects of technology.

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