Being new to the advertising major,
the presentation by Dietmar
Dahmen
was an exciting
way to learn about the broad range of advertising in our fast-paced society. One
aspect of the presentation that caught my eye was the statistics about how the
world of technology has rapidly spread to all countries. I was shocked to find
out that there are about 6 billion mobile phones as of February 2011, which
means more people have phones than toothbrushes and even clean water! To know
that people in other countries have access to text or call someone but don’t
have the bare necessity of clean water to drink is mind-bottling. I knew that
technology was taking over the current generation but I had no idea that it has
interwoven itself as deeply as a component in life that ranks above clean
drinking water. In a way it is depressing that companies are putting all their
money, time, ideas, and effort into finding new ways to improve their phone or
new apps, when the focus should be on creating new ways to get everyone drinking
water. Yes, it is exciting when Apple releases a new Iphone or Facebook
promotes their newest updates, but it would be much more humanely beneficial to
announce that everyone in the world is healthy and hydrated instead of tech
savvy.
But why are we so addicted to our
beloved iPhones when just mere years ago it didn’t even exist and we all were
doing just fine with our lives. Dahmen answered this question by stating to us
that the phone requires ultra low mental cost and ultra low access cost. With
unlimited texting, free Wifi, and the internet at your fingertips, the mobile
phone provides easy-access information and entertainment all in one mobile
device. To think that most of us would choose free wifi over using a swimming
pool at a hotel is surprising yet realistic in this decade. When I look around
though on campus it is clearly apparent that we have been taken over by a
device that fits in the palm of our hand.
With the technology growing day by
day, I wanted to find out about the possible side effects we are already
experiencing/expect to experience from overuse of technology in our daily
lives. From personal experience, I feel that the excessive use of technology is
causing people to become extremely open on the web (like status updates on
Twitter) while becoming distant in real life. Also, people are a lot less
sociable/approachable in social settings since they seclude themselves to their
phone. I found an article from Biola Magazine where a psychologist informs the
reader of the impact that overuse of technology has on our brains, such as
making us less adaptable as human beings. Below is the link to the article.
Dahmen’s presentation was as rapid
and constantly evolving as the technology around us is. With the latest updates
always popping out of nowhere we are living in an exciting time, but once in
awhile we should step back to admire the newest update before rushing to create
a new one. Until this presentation I never really noticed how connected we are
to technology as a society and how advertising plays a huge role in promoting
and selling the latest products to keep technology up to par so we all can have
the latest update.
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