Before Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl, football enthusiasts were convinced that the game had changed forever. Instead of defense winning games, critics and fans believed that spectacular offense, with trick plays and agile quarterbacks, would dominate the game. But with consistently tough defense centered on speed, the Bucs slammed the door on that idea by hushing the number one ranked offense of the Raiders.
Days later, the same thing happened to our world. Think of technology as the offense. After 112 successful landings from space for NASA, the orbiter Columbia fell apart above Texas, leaving only remains of the shuttle and the passengers. Now, the world’s best astrophysicists are trying to piece together what went wrong. Even the best technology, our dynamic offense, was not enough to bring the astronauts to the ground safely.
As students, we depend on technology to survive each day just like the astronauts depending on it to bring them home. From cellular phones to the Internet, technology is our primary means of communication and, for many, the choice way of commerce. But we shouldn’t let our generation become one that cannot survive without technology. If we let that happen, then we fail when technology fails.
It is true, of course, that the technology we use at Cabrini is pretty advanced. After a crash-filled first semester, the network seems to be chugging along very well this semester. This is a good sign that we can fix the errors as they happen. It is important that we continue to use technology and build on what we have now, but we can’t become comfortably dependant on it – it just won’t work.
It is easy to believe that each one of us is able to use the old ways of communication when technology fails. We’re students of higher education, after all. It’s our job to be well-rounded and versatile. But take a moment and remember your reaction the last time that the network went down and you couldn’t check your E-mail or sign on to AOL Instant Messenger. Panic much?
The dynamic new offenses are fun to watch as technology is fun to use. The tools of the new era have undoubtedly proven useful and they will keep getting better. When the trickery stops working though, a good defense still wins championships.
