The author Ted Gup takes an insightful look at the places we are going with technology in his essay "The End of Serendipity." Gup raises the question: "How far is too far?" Are our kids ever going to touch the hard cover of a book? Will the next generation of students feel the sting of a paper cut after handling the pages of a text, or suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome after dangling their writsts over a computer keyboard for hours on end?

According to Gup, the Internet is a device intended to give information at the ease of the push of a button. Whatever happened to getting information the old-fashioned way--having one's mom find it? What about reading fiction stories at bedtime? What happened to the adventure of reading The Three Little Bears? Are our children going to be lulled to sleep by the stroke of computer keys and the clicking mouse that haunts every cubicle worker's nightmares? These are all points raised in some way or another by Gup.

He takes a look at the Internet in a way to which I can relate. I'm not saying that I loss myself in a sea of imagination every time I read a book, but I can understand the point that the author raises as he says, "These [Internet] innovations are ushering in a world that, at least to my taste, is entirely too purposeful." Gup has a good point. We as a society have come so far that we can't stop for a few seconds to explore new possibilities. 

Sometimes I see through the eyes of this author. I have really been awakened by the subject matter of the computer class I have been taking this semester. I truily hope that the world will never be reduced to simple explorations of all possiblities for specific purposes alone.

Gup, Ted. "The End of Serendipity." CyberReader. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor J. Vitanza. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. 250-253.