There is such a strong push in our society to have some of the greatest and best technological toys that it seems very few people are bothering to turn and look at what all of this technology could do to us. We live through our PDA and cell phone while we are quick to jump in complaining about the lack of the personal touch if we feel we don't get enough attention.

We want to ensure that our incomes are fully automated and we want our bank account to be smart enough to pay our bills without ever bouncing an electronic check. Yet as the pace of our world speeds up we are also loudly crying about how we only get about 5 minutes with our physician when in fact we want the personal touch. We ask that our cars be smart enough to tell us whether we're driving at the maximum fuel efficiency but we don't want to be bothered by cell phone calls in public.

The 50 inch plasma TV is a great invention yet we haven't determined how to make the 32 inch plasma TV run on less energy. We don't want to talk to a stranger to give out the simplest of directions despite the fact that our Bluetooth GPS is strapped right to our hip. We don't want to work. Instead we want an internet business income to do all our work for us.

While it seems like we have only recently arrived at this crossroads this isn't entirely true. We started allowing robots to replace humans in plants all over the country back in the late 1980s. As technology encroaches on our world more every day we have to start wondering where we are heading and what we're going to do about it.

When jobs are replaced by robots there will be great dissention, poverty, and hunger in our streets all in the name of progress. Is it possible that we can move forward with our technology and still maintain the human element that we need so desperately?

For every meal unnecessarily interrupted by a cell phone and every family member that we put off in exchange for another hour on the computer the more we give our lives over to our great advancements. Yet when we turn the cell off and shut off the computer early and go for a walk we take back pieces of ourselves.

Technology has led to some major improvements in the quality of people's life, there is no denying that. But if we are really to engage fully in our own world that we are creating, we need to start asking the questions we need to ask now, not after we have wiped out the middle class.