I felt this would be a good time to remind all of you that the impending doom of “Y2K” is a mere six months away. In other words, you only have six months left to stockpile food and ammunition, clean out your bank accounts and prepare for the apocalypse.

Now, depending on who you talk to, you’ll get differing reports on how serious the problem will be.

Whatever the case, I take the whole thing as an example of how overly reliant our culture is on the computer.

Granted, even now, not everyone is capable of doing even the most simple operations on a computer.

Just ask one of the Durham lab monitors.

But, for the most part, we have all been convinced that computers save us all valuable time.

What some people fail to realize is that for all the time that computers save, they cost at least as much in maintenance.

Let’s take the example of a small business that used to keep all of their records in a file cabinet, but now has them all in a database.

Since switching to electronic records, they can now arrange and rearrange those files with the click of a button. It seems like a time-saver.

But they would be forgetting the three hours it took them to install all the software, the four hours they spent on the phone with the tech-support people and the time they kicked the dog because a program didn’t recognize the print driver.

Do you know how many people work in computer-based fields? Well, I don’t either, but I bet it’s a hell of a lot.

Just think about it. Twenty years ago there were hardly any computer engineers, technical support personnel or on-line editors. Now they make up a large portion of the workforce.

All of those complex jobs have recently become necessary in order to maintain a technology that is supposedly making things easier.

As much as I respect the Unabomer, I’m not condoning his stance on technology.

There are benefits to be had in technology, but they often overshadow the danger of becoming reliant on technology.

Case in point: I bet you have a computer either at home, at work or both. I also bet that if that computer crashed you would be seriously screwed.

I’m in the same boat. I’m typing this on a computer, and if the server crashed I would be in trouble.

We do everything at The Daily, from writing to layout, on computers. I wouldn’t know a printing press from a pregnant emu.

The point is we are far too reliant on technology relative to the benefits we get from those technologies.

If you could look at what everyone on every computer in the world is doing right now, I guarantee you for every person doing productive work, there are nine playing “Minesweeper.”

And let’s not even get into how many people are surfing for porn. And then you’ve got to figure out how many of those people are actually finding good porn.

Don’t you hate it when you wait an hour for this site to load and then all it’s got is … well that’s a story for another time.

Another interesting question is that if all of our technology is saving us so much time, why are most Americans working more and more hours every year?

Are we really being more productive during that time? And even if we are, is that anything to be proud of?

Even though many of us may not realize it, we’re kind of programmed to believe in a technological utopia.

A place where medicines cure all ailments, every room is the perfect temperature and DiGiorno tastes just as good as delivery.

Whether you’ve read “Brave New World,” “1984” or any others of their ilk, you’d have to agree that we’re moving much closer to a world of drug-induced, machine-controlled submission than towards any kind of utopia.

Y2K is really the ultimate symbol of that. The whole idea that because some intern had this great idea to save space may cause airliners to crash is really pretty crazy.

So even if the new year passes with none of the problems that have been forecast, let’s not forget what caused the possibility in the first place.

We need to use technology as a tool to make our world better, and not let ourselves be used as tools for that technology.

Otherwise it’s going to be just like in “The Terminator,” I swear.

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Ben Godar is a senior in sociology from Ames. He is arts and entertainment editor for the Daily. He hopes that the future will be really cool, like in “Star Trek.”