We as a society and as students don't realize it, but our lives revolve around technology. When it is taken from us we panic - we don't know what to do or how to cope.

This was never more apparent than on Sunday when MSU's new e-mail system was inaccessible due to maintenance work. More than 2,500 students, faculty and staff use the site and when the system went down, so did our productivity.

People all over campus went through withdrawals. Their work was halted. Students needing to send and receive vital e-mails pertaining to their classes couldn't do so. A lot of departments, offices and businesses on campus rely on the e-mail system to function, and when they can't, things go haywire.

If the university needed to do maintenance work, perhaps the end of the semester when finals are creeping up isn't the best time. The lack of e-mail restricted students and professors from communicating important information to one another.

But at the same time, maybe it was good for us. Maybe this taught us a lesson. Our society has become so dependent on technology that we become helpless and debilitated when we no longer have it. This can't be healthy, because technology is imperfect and prone to failure and to be reliant on it is to be dependent on something that is not guaranteed.

We need to find other ways to communicate to one another when an incident like this occurs. We need to have a backup plan because technology isn't an absolute - it's imperfect. There needs to be other ways to get in touch with classmates and professors in times when technology is absent.

MSU is constantly working to improve our e-mail services, and as these services improve and become seemingly more reliable, we have to remember that technology can always fail.