Advanced Essay #1: The Ties of Technology and Society

Technology is more than a form of entertainment. From personal experience, technology can be a simple and impacting way to understand the struggles and stories people deal  with in life. Some of the stories can be about things you have a general idea about that gives you a better understanding then what you originally knew. I never had a story that I could personally relate to but those type of stories can happen. Now the way I heard this story are going to be strange to most people but video games is where I get these stories the best. I hear impactful stories while playing video games because I do LFG (Looking For Group) forums all the time for the game I play and I can get good stories time to time. Some funny, some just random talk, and then some that are just impactful to the views of life.

I’m going to tell a story that I heard over the summer from just finding random people on LFG to do something I know I can’t do alone and before I start let me just note the people I was with were all adults as I said earlier I was finding random people. The story I heard when I was doing missions with someone then his buddies hopped in the voice chat we were in. I never started the conversation as I was dead silent as I wanted to focus on what I was doing in the game. I can’t remember much of this part of the conversation but the guys soon started talking about how they or someone they cared about was going through or overcame drug addiction. I can’t remember much of that conversation as they never talked that much on it but this part of the conversation I remember as this story made me say to myself “I deeply respect this man.”.

It started when one of the guys talked about how he was in the military reserves. After he finished talking one of the other guys started talking about how he was actually deployed onto the field for 2 years then after he was honorably discharged from service he got put in the reserves and how he hated it.  “They were all truck drivers.” he said referring to everyone else working their. Before he went to leave, he researched what they could do to him. The military could do nothing to stop him from leaving as he already was honorably discharged so he quit the reserves. He dropped his gear off at the building and when he told the sergeant in charge of the place, the sergeant started yelling at the guy. The guy yelled to the sergeant that he couldn’t stop him from leaving and that he could beat the sergeant up. He then yelled towards to the men listening to the conversation saying how he went to battle for 2 years while they had no experience except training. He then challenged them to stop him. No one stood up and he walked out the front door and just like the research told him they did nothing to him. I had a deep sense of respect for him after his story as I had no knowledge of the military and I never knew that his story could ever happen, especially that nothing happened to him after. I was both surprised and amazed by his story I had to remember it. It’s stories like this that you can’t hear in your daily life unless your job is to find the most random and crazy stories for a newspaper or article job. I took a few things from that story is that even if you work for the Military and your abide not to leave there are conditions that they can’t touch you just for leaving. One thing I still wondered but never looked up is what could the military/government have done if he wasn’t honorably discharged.

Many people have different ideas about how to understand and gain a bigger impact of life but to me the best source can be just meeting random people using technology to talk to them server to server as it’s a part of their own life and in their own words unedited by reporters or editors for a article so it’s a really reliable source. LFG in video games can find you people you can get a story out of but it won’t just be told randomly unless they are seeking for attention. For me I only hear these stories after someone else or I bring up a topic the person with the story can relate it to. If you do find an interesting story don't be afraid or nervous to ask for more details as that's when you learn even more so you can understand the bigger meaning.