Technology rant

Just to clarify, I know technology is a good thing and I gratefully use it daily. However I am not ashamed to admit that the ideas some people come up with scare the pants off me.

In class today we talked about several "wonderful" technological advances that may be coming out in the next 20 or so years. The first is a computer running car. There is no human factor to said car, you type in where you want to go and then watch a movie while it takes you there. The second is Dehydrated meals, no more cooking just add water and you get dinner in seconds. The third is a virtual classroom.

All of these bug me, the virtual classroom is probably the most irritating, but cooking is a very close second. My question is what about real life, what about experience? You can look at a picture of a lion all you want, but until you see a lion in person you have only an inkling of what a lion is really like. What happened to trying new things and HUMAN interaction? If a kid goes to class in a helmet, then will he really learn? If a person spends all their time in a virtual world are they really living? I hope I'm not the only one out there with these concerns. I know how wonderful technology is and how much it has improved the standard of living, but I'm genuinely scared of where it might take us. No I'm not paranoid, and I don't fear robots taking over the world. What I do fear is raising my kid in a world where he will never get to experience driving a car, or asking a girl from his class on a date. I'm scared of my son never getting to experiment with food and of him being outcasted because he has never played a video game. I'm scared of him going to school for 6 hours a day and never even opening a book. I'm scared to live in a world where there in no longer a human factor. Where the only people you actually come into contact with is your own family. I'm scared of how underdeveloped our society will become. Realistically speaking I understand that it isn't my place to stop people from inventing, and I would never dream of doing so, but can there at least be an option? Can We designate a place where people still drive cars, and children still ride the bus to school. Where I can safely grow a garden and my children can learn hard work by working hard. Maybe I do want to live in 1950, but I don't see the real problem with that. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to raise my children in the real world. I m not virtually caring this kid and I won't virtually give birth to him, that will be real, I just don't want that to be his only real experience.