Computers, like any technology enveloped into a human society, affect our lives in countless ways. It is interesting to note, however, that if individuals fail to keep tabs on which ways computers affect them personally, it will become more likely that the advent of this technology affects her/him in negative ways as opposed to positive ones.. . For instance, at least one pharaoh from before the height of ancient Egyptian society was against the advent of writing. When you consider the fact that writing on parchment and papyrus took tools and inks and that writing on stone took skilled crafters with tools of their own, writing, in and of itself, is a technology. Conceptually, at the very least, it is a technology that RECORDS things on paper. How could anyone, no less the leader of a vast empire, be against such improvement? Well, he worried for his subjects. He is often quoted as saying something that loosely translates to "If we start writing everything down, nobody will have any reason to REMEMBER anything anymore." This pharaoh saw such an "improvement" as not only something he himself could stop in its tracks, but also something that had more drawbacks to cultured living than it did merit.. . He was not truly as radical as he might sound. Every society that pictures itself perpetuating, as-is, into a long and deep future usually conceptualizes the dangers of doing so. You see elements of this in H.G. Wells' THE TIME MACHINE, in Isaac Asimov's I, ROBOT, and even in almost every modern film with a sci-fi setting.. . Examined for what it is, that pharaoh’s statement is not as much a matter of personal MEMORY as it is a matter of personal RESPONSIBILITY. Meaning, if nobody takes the responsibility to remember anything, only the smaller responsibility of writing something down, wouldn't that lead to a dumbing-down of his people, a lesser need for focus, perfection, concentration, and intellect? He thought so.. . The same is true of any technology, in a way. Haven't automobiles, for all the good they've brought us, also lead to less walking, poorer health, greater costs of living, more traveling deaths, irresponsible directions, a greater schism between haves and have-nots, global warming, holes in the ozone layer, poorer air quality, traffic congestion, travelers stranded at greater distances from their homes, commutes to more distant workplaces, anti-social behaviors, more crimes, and entire chunks of the countryside turned into parking lots? Of course they have. Automobiles also save lives, create adventure, advance careers, keep us in face to face touch with distant family, afford us friends, allow carpooling, open doors, speed progress, and create jobs. With regard to the pharaoh’s statement, advancements like these are not a strict count of the positive verses the negatives; they are a matter of accountability. Think about it, for all the bad things that cars have helped along, do we hold any single person responsible? Henry Ford for mass producing them? The President for being voted into a society that has them? No, we don't. How many of us take personal responsibility for the ozone layer? Air quality? Carpooling? Not many. The advent of technology like the automobile has allowed us to be LESS personally responsible than we were before hand.. . Layer that onto the lesser personal responsibility of having electricity coming to the house, television, radio, air conditioning, and so forth and it would almost seem that the pharaoh was correct. We, as a society, have benefited from each advancement in technology, but almost always at the collective cost of shifting our personal sense of responsibility to other issues, if not eliminating it altogether.. . Which brings us to the advent of computers, specifically household computers as a feature of home life. Perhaps the only thing that sets computers as a technology, apart from all other technologies with