Fifteen years ago, life was totally different – the click of the mouse was rarely heard of, students wrote their bulky projects by hand and files were transferred not by mail but by a storage disk called a floppy. People had to wait an hour for their dial-up just to check their ‘EIM’ mail, and no one felt the need for mobiles, MP3s and laptops.

Boy, have times changed.

The room-sized computer has been replaced with a ten inch laptop, the telephone booth with a mobile handset, the 3.5 inch floppy with a mere half inch USB with 16,000 times the capacity. And don’t forget the 14 inch grayscale television – the wonder of technology that created countless memories has now been forgotten in favor of the larger than ever LEDs, LCDs and plasmas.

Undoubtedly, the revolution of technology has had its benefits, but we have also become too used to it. Life comes to a standstill when the mobile battery runs out or the computer stops responding.
Whatever happened to those quaint ancient days when people wrote with fountain pens and had flawless penmanship?  These days, the fountain pens lie aside, rusted, while the sound of typing has become such a big part of our lives that it’s not even annoying.

You might be surprised to learn that a couple got married a few months ago – the bride was a robot-assembler and the groom was a robotics professor, but the minister who performed the marriage was none other than the robot himself!!

Is it the ever-growing prevalence that has made us used to this technology, or is it our need that has given rise to this advancement? Either way, it looks like technology is here to stay.

Amna Siddiqui