Gena Markman
Books/Hockey Editor
Gena.markman@yahoo.com

    After a long day of work, Evelyn hops into the back seat of a taxi and instructs the driver to take her to the well-known American Museum of Natural History. She gets no reply. After several blocks in an unfamiliar part of town, Evelyn begins to get nervous… “Where are we going?” She leans forward and asks the driver, her voice tense. “Excuse me,” she repeats “where are we going?” She leans more and looks through the plexiglass divider to see the driver’s seat completely vacant! You think this is farfetched? Think again. One year is ten years in the tech world. We have advanced from walkie-talkies to touch screen phones that have a computer, GPS, game console, camera/ video recorder, book store, and Mp3 system built in. Who needs common sense? Day-to-day skills? To be coordinated and alert? A sense of control? There’s an app for that… and that, in my opinion, is exactly the problem.
            Don’t get me wrong, technology can be a beautiful thing that adds fun and convenience to our lives… but is it okay for it to take over our lives? The Lexus LS460 is one of the many new cars equipped with an “Advanced Parking System”… a system that only requires the driver to brake softly and stay attentive, allowing you to literally watch your car park itself. Now, I can only imagine the next step; watch your car drive you to work, watch your car help you escape a bank robbery, watch your car pick up your children?! This is insanity. Soon we won’t need driver’s licenses at all and your little brother can drive himself to preschool. And what happens if you don’t give your car daily oil changes? It might, in an emotional frenzy, just drive you off a bridge. In all seriousness though, a world where a car accident is completely out of your control and can happen at any moment due to an equipment malfunction doesn’t settle my uneasy mind.
            Now, go home, change your oil, and master that parallel park! Before they invent a hovercraft that will do it for you…