Change has always been an inescapable part of human life.  Growth, reform, new ideas, new technologies – all of these and more are constantly remaking the world as we know it, giving us new ways to explore the things around us and interpret the constant influx of information that we get.  Naturally, some people aren’t exactly fond of every aspect of this.  There are downsides, certainly, but some major leaps in progress over the course of human history have been met with resistance.  Technology alters the way that we see the world, drastically in some cases – the world today is connected like never before, information passing from side of the globe to the other almost instantly.  It makes sense that similarly radical transformations in technology and the things that it allows us to do would make some people uncomfortable.  Socrates himself was illiterate, refusing to use what he viewed as a crutch to gain more knowledge.  He didn’t believe that reading was necessary, and claimed that it undermined internalizing knowledge and truly understanding things.  But literacy persisted, becoming more and more important over time until it was the norm.  Today, people often push back against technology, claiming that it’s too much, that it’s gone too far, and that people will use it as a crutch, not truly learning anything for themselves if they have the world’s collective knowledge at their fingertips.  It’s true that there may be downsides – change and development often means a certain level of sacrifice.  But I think that the benefits of modern technology far outweigh any negative repercussions.  It’s a beautiful thing, to have so much information readily available at all times.  It makes knowledge a collective, turns it into something that anyone with a wifi connection can achieve.  There is far too much knowledge in human history for any one person to internalize.  Should you simply give up?  Should you struggle to learn small, individual skills from specific people and places at the cost of being able to do so much more?  The way that modern technology is ingrained in our society may certainly have drawbacks, but it seems to me that attempts to tear it down are attempts to privatize information.  I believe that knowledge is the one thing that everyone should have completely free, open access to, no matter who they are.  If information is allowed to be limited to specific people, then that means that there are people deciding who should get to know what.  This just makes it easier to control people, to keep them from achieving what they could otherwise.  People deserve to pursue whatever information they can, and the internet makes that so much easier.  It’s true that people might not internalize information the same way that they used to, that maybe it isn’t as inherently important anymore.  But I think that there’s something to be said for being able to decide that I want to learn more about something or take up a new hobby, and being able to find everything people know about it instantly.  We’ve evolved to the point that we don’t need to depend on mentors or elders to teach us things that we’re curious about – we can just learn it ourselves, decide how we feel about things and research them until we have our own opinions of the world around us.  Whatever these abilities may cost us, I think that they’re worth it.  It’s perfectly reasonable to worry about the harm it could be doing, but people will never stop innovating.  Just as the literacy that Socrates refused to embrace is now an integral part of human society, so will all new technologies be.  The choice you have to make is whether you’re willing to take the good with the bad and allow them to help you grow, or whether you’ll reject them entirely and let a rapidly advancing society leave you behind.