Earth Hour

Earth Hour is set for tonight starting at 8:30!

Earth Hour is a global environmental initiative that was started in 2007 in Australia as a way to raise awareness and promote sustainable living.

This year it seems like everyone is getting involved in the sustainable living movement, including Durex!

Watch this commercial that was created for the event,

#turnofftoturnon



I find this commercial extremely interesting because it really does outline how connected we have become with technology. Along with the global movement for climate change through the Earth Hour campaign, Durex really hit the nail on the head with this ad.

How much is too much? Do we as a society rely too heavily on technology?

I myself am a culprit of being too connected with my phone and am guilty of being too reliant on technology to solve my problems for me.

Not only has technology aided the medical age to get to where it is now, thus increasing lifespans, but has also aided the destruction of global communication barriers; allowing for mass communication to exist. Technology has also increased efficiency and ease in so many different avenues that imagining a life without a smartphone, internet and computers is hard to comprehend and even harder to fathom.

Social media has enabled old friends to connect and basically immediate assimilation of information to the global population in seconds. The sheer speed that information can be spread and the number of people it can reach is sometimes overwhelming. But what kind of impact has this increase in efficiency brought us to?

As a student I cannot live without my computer as pretty much everything is available online, and as a member of society, living without technology is pretty much as obsolete as the original iPhone.

Pretty much what it comes down to is that if you have a smartphone, the demands and expectations that are put upon you are incredulous and not replying in a timely fashion is just not an option anymore. Even 10 years ago I can remember being in Europe and not calling my parents for weeks on end, and I could get away with it because "I couldn't find a pay phone", but now? Good luck!

The same goes for communicating with peers, social groups and responding to emails. I can't possible think about returning an email 3 days upon receipt without apologizing profusely for being late. As if it is my duty to drop everything I am doing to reply immediately to each and every text I receive, snapchat I open, Facebook message thread I am a part of.

I worry for the future of humanity as the increase in social media usage creates an almost false communication between people. We probably won't know for a while what kind of social implications this will have on individuals, can people even have a face-to-face conversation anymore?

But alas, this is another topic altogether!

For now, turn off the lights at 8:30 like you're Nelly Furtado for Earth Hour and together we can build a more sustainable world!