Every generation brings something new to the sum of knowledge humanity possesses, and the majority of people consider it to be alright; yet in every generation there is a considerable percentage of people who would rather not change or create anything and would be even more happy if they could prohibit others to do so as well. In some ages they are more numerous and influential, in others – less. Our own time, considered as the time of progress and bringing down the barriers, is characterized by especially large number of them.
“Computers are evil, the Internet is dangerous, they eat up your brain and deprive people of normal ways of communication”, they write in their blogs on the Internet, sitting before the computers, “we should limit their use and stick to other, more traditional ways of communicating”. The very thing they denounce gives them the possibility of denouncing it and making their thought known to everybody who cares.
People who hate computerization most likely never studied history and don’t know that exactly the same things were once said about telephones, radio and television – they were considered unnatural by a certain minority of people. And, no doubt, when an unknown genius has first used the wheel, he was immediately executed by his fellow tribesmen for sacrilege or something. Yet nowadays we use wheel, telephone, television and radio every day and consider it to be completely natural and indispensable.
Computer is an amazing device that has completely changed the life of men. It doesn’t matter where you live now and how far you are from other people – you may communicate, learn new information, do business at will, without having to go to all the places you interact with. If somebody cannot cope with all these possibilities – it’s his problem. All the others will benefit from them.