What would you do if the internet went down, Facebook, online games, cell phones or email is no more? Would you be able to function?

We are in a time where the world is living on technology. Every part of our lives is controlled by smart phones, computers, machines and the internet. While I myself am able to communicate worldwide in a matter of seconds, there is a downside to all of the progress we have made in the past 30 to 40 years.

There are several ways that progress and technology has changed our lives for the worse, we have gotten lazy. Machines make jobs easier, more efficient and profitable, by being able to control functions from a computer, or a key board or other remote way, we have forgotten how to work hard. It has caused us to instead getting up, walking down the hall to speak with someone face to face, we call them on the phone, send an email or text them.

This hurts us in many ways. First, we get used to this and sit at a desk all day (I am as guilty as anyone) and get no exercise. We wonder how we get out of shape. We miss out on the face-to-face interaction and being personable with others.

It also costs jobs. For example, if every time you sent an email you instead took the time to hand write a letter, put it in an envelope, buy a stamp, and go to the post office and mail it, the problems with the post office would not be as bad. As a matter of fact, I believe that if people would take the time and write a real letter and send it out once a week, the U.S. Postal Service would do much better.

We hear all this talk about child obesity rates, but a lot of kids these days sit in front of a computer screen, or on their smart phones and play games instead of  going out to ride bikes, play in the dirt and do things kids do. When I was a kid, during the daylight hours I was no where to be found, well, within shouting distance most times. But I was out running around with my friends, whether digging something up, finding critters, fishing or whatever. Now kids don’t leave the house.

All of this technology makes us very impatient too. When we can send an email across the world and get a reply within seconds, it causes the expectation of how long it should take to get an answer. We then demand that everyone reply back to us immediately and if they don’t, something must be wrong!

Dating has taken a whole new turn as well. Not only does progress make it easy to speak with good looking people (so we think) we no longer take the time to get to know someone in person. But that is not really the worst part. With the websites like Ashley Madison and other sites making cheating on your husbands or wives, or boy friends and girl friends easy and anonymous, the morality of the country is going straight to hell! Yes I know, people cheated on their spouses a long time before the internet came along, but not as much as it is happening now.

Of course you never know who you are talking to, as illustrated in The Internet Conversation!

Because of progress, you and your family is less safe, hackers steal identities easier, newspapers post ridiculous maps to show who owns guns, protests online run rampant and people are constantly attacking others anonymously with no fear of repercussion!

Because of progress, we have less attention paid to infrastructure, roads, bridges, skilled labor. People think the next best way to become rich fast (remember the patience) is to become a computer guru. Building games, websites, morally imperfect sites are all ways that some have made billions, yet they all take away from real life. We push our kids to go to college and learn all about these new technologies and forget about the basics that are needed.

People are so addicted to technology that you would be hard pressed to find a teenager working in a grocery store who can manually count out change. Unless we start remembering the basics, the progress is going to tear us down.

Imagine this, if all the sudden the technology failed (computers and internet goes down) for a year, what would you do? Could you survive? Is your life saved on a chip?