In the words of my eighty-two year-old mother, "We live in a wonderful world, don't we?" Her near-breathless exclamation was made as she looked over my shoulder at what I could do on my iPod touch (I think we were looking at latest stats of the major stock markets from earlier in the morning). I have to admit that I still have a spark of that marvel when I consider what we have in the palms of our hands in the form of various computing technology. And when it comes down to it, I would have to say that the aspect of modern computing that impacts my life most is the way it facilitates instant communication and access to learning. No longer do we have to wait for the library doors to be unlocked. 24/7/365 we can get access to just about any conceivable form of news, weather, opinion, entertainment, commerce, self-expression, or education. And being an information/word junkie I have to say that my life has been, on the one hand, very positively impacted by this reality; this good.

Are my laptop and smarter-than-just-playing-music-and-videos iPod essential to my existence? No. If we had to go back to just books, radio and TV (and library doors locked when we wish they weren't), I would be fine...but I wouldn't like it. I would probably whine (okay, I would whine); for awhile. But if the restriction were less drastic and I had to choose only one technology device, it would have to be the laptop since the iPod touch is only a real-time, connected communicator if you have an open WiFi signal available (unlike the iPhone which I covet, and which is almost-always online due to its cellular subscription and accompanying, hefty price). What about the cell phone, you ask; could I get along without it? It would be inconvenient to not have my dumb (phone calls-only) cell phone, but then again, maybe it would force me to interact with people again: "Yes, God bless you for stopping in this traffic...my car just broke down. Can I use your cell to call my wife?" (Oops. Does that count as going without my cell phone?)

But isn't that the "other hand" of the technologies we all so love and depend on? Our human interactions and touches have suffered. Or have they? In many ways I would have to be honest and say that they have for me; especially within my own family. You've probably seen it too. We're all home again for Christmas and what are we doing? Mama's on the Mac in the office checking for Facebook updates, Big Sister is on her MacBook, wirelessly updating a professional blogging site, Little Sister is texting somebody on her cell phone, Big Brother is playing Xbox, Little Brother has nobody to talk to so he's outside playing with sticks and talking to the pets, and I'm in my office madly typing away at the ThinkPad on something. Oh sure, later we turned everything off (well not really, we didn't dare do that, but we physically left the devices for a little while) and talked, laughed, ate and were a connected-face-to-face family. But...   Well, that's the bad.

Sadly, while my various interactions with technology are only mildly unhealthy, a good friend of mine's life is wrecked because of them. It probably started with a look at a relatively soft-core pornographic magazine many years ago. But it grew into harder and harder-core images, now delivered on a computer screen, until the images were of little children, doing unspeakable things. Now he sits in a federal prison doing nine years on child pornography charges. They say that the penalty for the state charges on child molestation will probably be mostly satisfied by the time served on the federal charges. So did technology wreck his life? No. But the 24/7/365 access that is so good for most of us was, for him, a facilitator for evil and not good. There it is, the ugly.