My Train Journey with Technology

I sit here on a train - obviously as the title suggests such. I sit here opposite the girlfriend as she listens to music on my Dr Dre Beats Studios in White listening to music from my 2013 13” Macbook Pro whilst she laughs at pictures on Twitter on her iPhone 5s Sixteen Gigabyte in Gold (her choice of description, not mine). We are encompassed by technology. I’ve sat here on my laptop playing Football Manager 2014 for a good hour or so now, taking some time to appreciate the speed of my laptop as there’s no WiFi and as such i’ve decided to close down all other running apps as they require WiFi.

What made me decide to write this is that I’ve just peered to my right, a moment taken from adjusting my team on Football Manager, and the woman to the right of me is reading what I first thought to be a magazine from the corner of my eye, but later turned out to be an iPad (what looks to be a pre-Air model). It got me thinking that nearly everything we do these days requires a battery to run electricity through a board that runs an OS/interface that runs what we do and whether we are entertained or not. Within the four people within my vision I can count 9 different devices that are either being used or are laid out upon the table.

Escaping technology is like escaping human interaction in the modern world. Both require you to submit to your own world; both submit you to live a lesser life that isn’t quite as fulfilling if you had either and both submit you to a being of lesser intelligence and potentially (depending on your level of passion for technology/human interaction) lesser contentedness. Applying yourself to this choice would arguably allow you to open up alternative parts of your imagination where you don’t have to type, scroll, swipe, tap, double-tap or click to proceed further. Therefore allowing for alternative creativeness such as drawings, imaginative story lines etc.

As I look around, I realise the many uses of technology and how it has developed the way we consume and produce the content that before would take many different devices to achieve. The consumption of this information is now of a greater mass now also. When we open our devices, we have many places to find information from news feeds, timelines, boards, forums, videos and so much more.

I believe we choose iPhones/iPads/Laptops as a form of portable communication is the reason aforementioned. We can consume so much different forms of media in a 4-10” screen than we can in a newspaper/magazine or some form of other physical media.

I implore you to think over the past hour, just how many different devices and different applications/programmes you have used to consume technology. Right now you’re using a digital device to digitally consume information, whether it’s a laptop, desktop, mobile or tablet. Just have a think and realise that digital devices are the new news, the new world and the new you.

EDIT: - Hi, I’m Abi, Luke’s Girlfriend, I have an Apple iPhone 5s 16gb in Gold. I am on a 4g contract so despite having no wifi the journey is bearable as this allows me to still go on basic apps such as Twitter, Instagram and my personal favourite Depop. That’s all, thank you.