Ashton Radvansky Journal 1

There is so much in this world that I take for granted, and this is partially due to me being a millennial. Since my birth in 1997, I have always been surrounded by a technological culture. I grew up watching Thomas the Tank Engine on television, I got my first mp3 player for Christmas in first grade, and I was not even 10 years old when the first iPhone came out. For me, technology has always been there in my life and I find it difficult to imagine what life was like before cellphones and electronics. Because of this, I initially struggled to understand Freud’s argument in Civilization and Its Discontents.

Today’s culture blinds individuals of the negatives that technology and innovation has placed on society. When Freud wrote Civilization and Its Discontents in 1930 the advancements in technology were only just beginning, yet Freud was already noting differences in the way that humans interacted with one another. Personally, I view the ability to travel as a great asset in my life. Without the ability to fly with ease from Texas to Pennsylvania, I would not be able to attend Bucknell, which would have prevented me from forging the countless lifelong friendships I have so far here at Bucknell. Freud, on the other hand, points that large-scale transportation has further separated family members from one another. He states, “If there were no railway to overcome distances, my child would never have left his home town, and I should not need the telephone in order to hear his voice” (Freud). Upon reading this quote, I reflected on how my parents may potentially feel about me attending school over 1500 miles away from home. Yes, they are proud of me living on my own and being successful in school, but they are also sad that they do not get to see me every day. I am their only child, so life is vastly different for them when I am at school. Freud argues that if transportation had not evolved into what it is today, then I would be attending school closer to home, and my ability to interact and communicate with my parents would be far better off.

Technology is the largest industry in world, and there is such a large push by consumers to own the ‘latest and greatest’ piece of technology, but I believe that we must all attempt to stay grounded in our lives. Often, when you ask someone what is the one thing that they could not live without, they will reply that their cellphones are a necessity to them, but we know this is not true. Humans only require food, water, and shelter in order to survive, but we often forget this in this in today’s times. Although technology has made our lives more stress-free and easier, we must always remember that the most important interactions we have in our lives are with other people – not our cellphones, not our computers, not our cars.