IN our world, there is nothing more fast paced than the evolution of technology and the Digital Age. In no less than 15 years, flip phones have evolved into iPhones and boulder-like computers have transformed into slim laptops. Even today, technology and the Digital Age is still advancing.

To me, the Digital Age is both good and bad. Good in the sense that communication is only a click or call away, that a glimpse of the world’s most beautiful places is within ones grasp. Bad in the sense that new technology is a new frontier for crime, privacy is becoming ever more irrelevant, and in severe cases, people’s lives are ruined.

For those who have read George Orwell’s ‘1984’, it is hard to forget one of the books most important aspects; privacy. Though the novel was published in 1949, it is still, if not more, relevant today. The thought of governments spying on its citizens through technology is now more believable than ever. Some say that governments already have the technology so what is stopping them? I am not a conspiracy theorist or in the realms of one, I just think realistically and theoretically. If a man has a gun, what stops him from using it? It may be in my time, or perhaps beyond, that privacy is completely eliminated, at the hands of technology.

I wish that technology could return to a simpler time. Perhaps a time when typewriters were the newest thing and when there was never a constant bombardment of software updates and “all new” technology. Perhaps I should become a hipster if I desire such things.

Whenever I hear of a new technology, I try not to get excited. I always think that in the future, my children and their children will look at my excitement with amusement and strange curiosity. Like how the children of today view a VCR or arcade game of the 1980’s; once such an advanced technology destined to become ancient equipment. We look at past technology and criticize its primitiveness, like how those in the future will judge ours and so on.

My point is that the digital age and technology is advancing too fast. One buys the newest phone and finds that within a few weeks that it has been replaced with the newest thing. The Digital Age for many is the best thing that ever happened, but the Digital Age is not over yet, and won’t be very soon.

* Talented Mossman State High School student Jake Girgenti is currently on work experience with Newsport.