Have you ever realized how absorbed people are in electronics and technology? The issue is something this Academic Advocate Reporter has been noticing a lot lately. People are obsessed with all the new gadgets and their functions. In my opinion, people are taking the saying “time is money” way too seriously. If a device can become more compact, and hold more information, people are willing to pay all out. Over the last few years, technology has advanced at an extremely fast rate.

You readers out there may not be aware that all Maine public middle school students in the seventh and eighth grades have access to laptops because Governor John Baldacci thought it necessary. All 7th and 8th graders in my school, Philip W. Sugg Middle School in Lisbon, have a computer assigned to them. It amazes me sometimes how frustrated kids get when their laptops take a little longer than normal to boot up. Students expect computers to operate within seconds. They have the world at the tip of their fingers! Personally, I don’t know what I’d do without my laptop at school. It’s so useful and very fast. If I need to know a fact about a subject, I can pretty much find anything I need to know with the help of my laptop. With the laptop program comes the area of responsibility for all students. If a student is observed mistreating their laptop, or playing games instead of using it for research, their privilege for using the laptop can be taken away. The laptops are intended to be used for learning purposes.

Schools are filed with technology beyond laptops. Almost all the kids have cell phones at my school. Not to mention, the famous Ipods and MP3 players. I’ve even heard stories of kids texting each other in class. Some become so technology savvy it goes undetected by teachers and fellow students. I really haven’t seen people text in class, but I’ve observed texting it in the bathrooms and locker rooms. On class projects a lot of students use the text language. Those of you that don’t know what that is I’ll try to explain it. It is an abbreviation of words using numbers, letters, and signs. For example, the sentence: I don’t know would be: idk. Isn’t that different from what a lot of people are used to?

People hide their Ipods to listen to them in classes. The earbuds are so small and unnoticeable that often times teachers don’t pick up on the use of them.

There are some big challenges with technology. It isn’t perfect. As an Advocate Staff member, technology is very important for me to meet my deadlines. Sometimes with technology comes, awful consequences. If I try to give my story to my Advocate Advisor, Mrs. Monica Millhime, for editing and transmission to the newspaper, my thumb drive will not work. There have been occasions where we were right on deadline with a story and photos.

Some technology seems so crazy to me. Some of the new things are gimmicks, in my opinion, and other things are changing peoples’ lives in positive ways. One just never knows. I’m anxious to see what another five years, ten years, even twenty years will bring. I really hope that companies come up with conservative ways to make and use products of technology. As I said people are willing to pay all out for the technology luxuries. I can’t even imagine what people are going to come up with next!

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