Our Sci-Fi World
Eleanor Coughlin (She/Her)
Editorial Team Member
As we continue to advance into our modern age, technology advances at a very fast rate. With only a few simple taps from the small electronic rectangle in our hands, we can talk to anyone we want, as long as we have their contact information.
At any second, I could text someone who I haven’t talked to in years, or facetime my friend who lives on the other side of the country. We have countless social media apps, and you can really talk to any random person in the world through the internet.
If someone time traveled back only two decades ago and showed them what we’ve accomplished, it would be hard to believe. We may not have flying cars, but if you really think about it, we’re truly living in the high tech sci-fi world that people in the 80’s were so sure was going to happen.
However, we don’t acknowledge it. We still talk about some high tech society as something that could happen in the distant future, but people never seem to acknowledge just how high tech our society currently is.
Since we use all of this fancy technology every day, the impact of how insane they are is diminished. At this point, most people in America, especially young people, have some sort of smartphone. We need these smartphones for practically everything, and many places and things have taken this in stride. Ever since Covid, restaurants have ditched their paper menus for scannable QR codes that take you to the menu on the website. Even though Covid has gone down a significant amount, many places seem to be content with the QR codes, going so far to not have any paper menus whatsoever, making phones important for another thing.
Technology advancement doesn’t seem to be stopping. Each new phone model has more and more impressive abilities. Every day it seems as if AI gets more and more realistic. Virtual reality has been getting more popular, along with 3D printing, and the list just keeps going. Yet we still dream of a sci-fi future with flying cars. I think it’s time to let that dream go, or at least put it to the side for a little bit.
Instead of focusing on a future with all those huge, crazy technology advancements, we should start focusing on how to use technology to help everyday people. Because let’s be honest: even if flying cars are invented soon, it’ll be a long time until people other than the super rich would be able to use them.
I believe we should be focusing our use of technology on making everyday life easier. Using AI to help route public transportation is just one example of how we could use this new technology. I also think that if we used AI in schools to help analyze how each student learns, we can create lesson/homework plans that match up with the way that student’s brain works, and make it easier for students to understand what they’re learning in school.
Technology doesn’t have to be super fancy and crazy to help people. While the idea of flying cars is fun, I think the idea of using what we currently have to help more in our everyday life is also fun, and much more helpful.