As 2007 begins, Americans pledge to improve health, financial gain and overall betterment. However, all too often February creeps into the scene, sinking those promises into the vague fog of past years’ forgotten resolutions.

The new year carries with it an onslaught of promises and resolutions. The defeat of personal statements falls into one of two categories of excuses.

The first is the ‘I’m too busy’ excuse, whereby the late-night eater becomes too busy to put an end to the midnight gluttony. The second, which most attempt to disguise with the first category is the ‘I’m simply too damn lazy’ excuse.

Both excuses are inadmissible this year. Americans are spoiled with an endless array of gadgetry to help succeed, regardless of the challenge. These gadgets allow multitasking or even do the job for the users, leaving no reason to fail on those resolutions. At least that is the suggestion made by large companies promoting all these ‘must have’ sidekicks to routine hustle and bustle.

But some argue that although products like the laptop were invented to aid people in their daily tasks and making for a more mobile workplace, the end result is anything but helpful.

‘The original motivation was to make it easier, but it just made our work more involved,’ said Alex Sperrazza, a sophomore industrial and interactive design major. ‘Now we’re just spending the same (amount of) time doing more work because we can do it faster.’

While Sperrazza suggests that technological accoutrements make way for higher output, others argue that laziness becomes the repercussion of man’s own craft.

‘The remote was supposed to make it easier, but because of it we’ve become lazier,’ said Lauren Migaki, an undeclared freshman.

Technology has the ability to become the ultimate model of man losing control to his own creation. Greek mythology warns against this exact trend in the story of Prometheus, in which Prometheus the titan steals fire from the gods and spreads it on earth by handing it over to man.

The principle, taught by the ancient story, raises a concern in every society.

Again in 1818, Mary Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus’ warned against such trends.

Frankenstein illustrates that man can create, yet a point arrives when his control falls beyond man’s reach.

Migaki views such inventions as, ‘a kind of vicious cycle.’

Sure, the intention of invention is primarily to help man, but the user must be aware of his dependency on the object.

Excessive dependency only complicates things that were originally designed to consolidate tasks.

‘All things are positive from a technological standpoint,’ said Donald Carr, program coordinator of the industrial and interactive design department. ‘It comes down to appropriateness.’

Brett Miller, an independent science contractor said technology should not be to blame for a lazy culture.

‘People always say how you end up being a slave to technology,’ he said. ‘But it really ends up dividing your time into smaller segments that are mediated by technology.’

Whether technology allows for slavery, productivity or vicious cycles, the ball is in the court of the user in 2007. Excuses aside, designs are intended to round off the corners of daily tasks, making success more easily achievable.