If Darwin was right, we're in trouble

by DanaWilliams

research
comparison/contrast

If Y2K had happened twenty years ago, there would not have been a major concern. Now almost every business owns computers. At least 90,000 businesses use the Internet. Some, such as Amazon.com, are run only on the Internet. If the computer system were to shut down, a lot of people would be without jobs. We have gradually become more and more dependent on technology. As a result, we have become weaker. In terms of Darwin's "only the strongest survive" the people of twenty years ago were far superior to the people of today because of their non-dependence on computers.

First, there is the obvious decline in physical fitness. For example, in Vermont, the percentage of students who participate in at least three hours of physical activity a week has dropped from 70% to 64% in only two years. Fewer than half of all students participate in a muscle toning activity, such as weightlifting. And although it takes 150-200 minutes a week to truly develop physical fitness , less than 25% of all students participate in physical fitness classes five days a week. Although you probably shouldn't believe those stories your parents tell you about "walking ten miles to school in the snow, uphill both ways," it is true that they used to walk more. As a society, we now spend way more time watching television than we do exercising. Quite frankly, we have become as lazy as sloths.

However, it is not only in the area of physical fitness that we have become weak. We cannot take care of ourselves without technology like we used to. We are continually losing the knowledge of how to do things by hand. If parts of the power grid were to shut down, as some Y2K predictions suggest, the results could be horrifying.

Last year income of farmers dropped 6.8% nationwide . This decline in income has caused millions of farmers to quit their jobs and search elsewhere for employment. Pretty soon there may not be very many farmers at all, and for all of our technology, without farmers there would still be no food on your table. Twenty years ago, many people had a small garden patch in their backyard. Now we spend our free time watching television or chatting on the Internet. Many of us have no clue when to plant corn, how much water strawberries need, or what kind of mushrooms are edible. And as technology has increased, fewer farmers have this knowledge as well. It is all stored in a computer program, instead of in their minds.

It is no secret that housewives have been a disappearing commodity. With housewives, cooking and sewing have also vanished. Although we used to bring pants with rips in them to Mom for mending, we now throw them away and buy a new pair. A child might have come home from school twenty years ago and been greeted with the smell of freshly baked cookies. Now, if a child wants a snack after school, he pops something in the microwave.

In just twenty years our lifestyles have changed dramatically. Women and men work side by side. Television replaced family game night. The Internet is in, manual labor is out. Our survival has become dependent on technology. The problem with that is machines break, power lines snap, and we forget how to do things ourselves. While we continue on this ever advancing road of progress, we should not shun the past. It could come in handy someday.

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Questions? Brian McKinney (bmckinne@home.com)