Using Technology to Cope with Terrorism :: War Terror Essays

Using Technology to Cope with TerrorismEach one of us has our own unique grade of where we were when we learned of the attack on the earth Trade Center towers. Its a story weve told to friends and a story well continue to tell as this event transforms from a living verity to a historical one. Some were awoken by roommates, others informed by colleagues exceedingly through the hall, and others happened to turn on the television and watch with horror as the World Trade Center towers burned and finally collapsed. As intelligence operation spread, though, Americans became united in their need to know exactly what had happened. We turned on the television, we paused to listen to radios filtering out of cars, we visited Internet news sources again and again, clutching and grasping for facts, hoping that or so sort of clarity would calm us. Hour after hour we sit by the television trying to make sense of it all. Unconfirmed reports were set as facts by frantic news anchors, sketchy r eports of hijacking were announce and then confirmed. The news changed by the minute. A nation in blast began calling loved ones across the country, just to check in and to administer the horror together. Cell phone networks were inoperable in many areas of the country, not just in pertly York. Web-traffic became so congested that viewing CNNs web page became virtually impossible. We used these fleeting news sources as a way to grasp reality. But for many it didnt last a reality until we saw it the way our parents and grandparents had in years prehistorical black and white banner headlines announcing the tragedy in a dress that couldnt be refreshed, revised, or corrected. It was permanent, and it was true. The unimaginable had happened.And for those of us outside of New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. we used the technology around us to begin to comprehend. move to understand what it was like when the building collapsed, we listened to and read boundless witness tes timonies. though weary with despair we felt that it was our duty to experience the agony of ceremonial occasion the collision and the collapse over and over again, as if we could alleviate more or less of the New Yorkers suffering by taking some of it on as our own. We watched around-the-clock coverage from ground zero we contributed to discussion boards and listservs on the Internet, we held countless discussions among family members and friends.