Undelete?

Blogger has a feature to 'Undelete' a blog? That's awesome...

Pardon me for going all Tao of Rio on you here for a moment... but do you think this possibly has something to do with today's generation? I know, I know. I sound like an old fart. But bear with me for a tick.

1950. You're sitting in your classroom doing your English essay. Supplies: Notebook, pencil, eraser, brain. You write out a few sentences, then go back and read over them. Crap! You accidentally wrote "you're" instead of "your"! Okay, okay, we can fix this. You erase the "you're" and write in the "your". Now you've fixed it, but you can still tell that a mistake was made. There's little faint pencil marks on your paper that your teacher will still be able to read. Shoot. Well, you did fix it, so your grade won't be lowered. Just remember to watch your grammar next time.

2009. You're sitting in your classroom doing your English essay. Supplies: Laptop, internet, wikipedia. Brain optional. You type out a few sentences, grammar be damned. Word underlines your sentence in green. You right click, and it tells you that your sentence is a fragment. Well how are you supposed to fix that? You read over it again, fail to see the problem, then read over it again. Aha! There's the problem. You backspace a few steps, then fill in a few extra words. There. The Microsoft gods are satisfied. Save. Print. There you are! A perfect essay.

Now, the difference between the two is that with people today, mistakes are so easy to fix. Backspace, delete, and undo are your best friends. You can even undelete, apparently. Does that somehow psychologically seep into life?

I can sit in art class, make a mistake, and reach for CTRL+Z. I really do. And when I can't find my other shoe, I think I can start the search function. And this only lasts for a milisecond before I catch myself and laugh, but the point still stands.

Do we willingly make mistakes today because we think they are so easy to fix? Like we can just clear our history, empty the recycle bin and be done with it?