Negative Effects Of Technology

“THE MOST DISTURBING Stories about the future may be less about what could happen, …and more about what should happen given the way things are right now. The haunting visions of a sad tomorrow in Alexander Weinstein's excellent first collection, Children of the New World, fit that category. Inspired by the author's anxiety over our increasingly virtual lives, these 13 stories artfully slam an unchecked obsession with technology and affirm the beauty of reality's texture,” wrote John Wilwol in a book review published in the New York Times.

The effects of technology usage have long been a topic of debate, with the negative consequences often being brought up. Authors such as Robert Samuels, Alison Gopnik, Nicholas Carr, Gary Small and Vorgan Gigi have all addressed this topic in their own articles. In Samuels’ “Breaking Down Borders: How Technology Transforms the Private and Public Realms,” he discusses the creation of private bubbles in public spaces due to technology, and the consequent alienation of others. “Diagnosing the Digital Revolution” by Gopnik argues that the habits that tech users have today have always existed, while Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” states that technology is actively changing the way humans think. “Meet Your iBrain” by Gigi and Small covers how technology affects brains and alters them. This paper will use the articles and an interview with a peer to analyze the perceived negative effects of using technology, particularly worse memory, shorter attention span, exacerbation of bad habits, and shifting emotions.

Today, about 9 in 10 Americans use the Internet and 77% of Americans own a smartphone. Compare these statistics to the early 2000s when 5 in 10 Americans were online and in 2011, when only 35% of Americans owned a smartphone. Just a few decades ago, the technology we have today were merely ideas in science fiction novels or gadgets seen in a futuristic movie. There is no doubt that technology use has increased dramatically within this decade and these numbers may continue to rise as technology becomes more available to the public. Technology is slowly taking over our life and so many people have grown up surrounded by technology that a life without it is pretty much unimaginable. As technology becomes a bigger part of our daily lives, we

Technology has a major impact on society. With how integrated it is in the world today, it is hard to find something not affected by it. Everyday life is based around technology with cell phones, televisions, and cars being standard to most families in America. This makes some people think that it has a negative effect on society. While there are some negatives, overall, technology has a positive effect on society.

Technology: the best thing to happen to humanity or the worst? Technology has revolutionized our generations and many to come: Over 90% of adults have their mobile device with reach of them at all times, 4 of the 7 billion people in the world has a mobile device, eBay makes on average 700$ per second, google receives over a billion searches on average per day (The Future of Technology and its Effects). Technology has helped save many people in fields like medicine and health care and in cancer alone has saved an estimated 14.5 million lives(News.” HealthCare Institute of New Jersey), but is indirectly responsible for nearly all deaths in our world. Although the negatives of all the deaths and social skills lost to technology, the good out ways the bad with advancements in medications, education, and communication.

There’s no denying that technology has improved most people’s lives. Most people, including teens and in some cases children carry cell phones with them at all times. People no longer get lost when they travel because they have a navigational system to guide them on their phones. In case of an emergency, people be reach though different social platforms. People are depending on technology to work for them all the time, but when it doesn’t people feel lost. Smart phones are no longer used for what they were meant for, people don’t talk to each other over the phone anymore. Technology that allows communication through social media like smart phones has impacted the everyday lives of people in good ways: however, it has also been detrimental to the social lives of adolescents.

Mr. Ray Kurzweil, renowned inventor and author of The Singularity is Near, wrote in 2001 that technological progress was increasing twofold every decade, “We won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century-it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate)” (qtd. in Berman and Dorrier). We are only in the beginning of the 21st century and yet technology is advancing faster than our ability to adapt! Technology has given society convenience and a higher standard of living with the creation of the internet, smartphones, increasingly useful robots, and artificial intelligence that learns (Rosoff). In the past couple of decades, continued integration of technology in society has dramatically increased, resulting in significant problems with respect to invasion of privacy and loss of basic freedoms. Technology has enabled governments and large corporations to collect personal data. Facial recognition and surveillance technology are being used for more than just “security.” Although this rise in technology has provided society with many different freedoms and benefits, technology will eventually lead to a society with little or no freedom.

Technology is the science or knowledge put into use to solve problems as well as invent useful tools. It is a necessity used in everyday lives because of its advancement, especially in today’s world, from curing illnesses to being able to talk to someone across the country with one single electronic device. Although technology may look as if it’s beneficial to our society, it will ruin the future of the human race. We live in a place with hate all around that can be the cause to an atrocious downfall. Countries use this power to overthrow each other with the use of weapons such as nuclear bombs that can easily wipe out a city with one single button. Similarly, the novel Level 7, by Mordecai Roshwald, gives a great realistic outlook of what would happen if the government were to use a nuclear bomb to wipe out their enemies. Other novels such as The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells indicate the negative viewpoint, not only with death but what the future of technology will hold for the human race. Technology will eventually become so powerful that humans will no longer be able to control it causing their immense downfall.

When was the last time you went a day without turning on the TV, working on the computer, or looking at your phone? I doubt many could honestly say they have gone more than one day without using technology. A little girl and her mom walked into Verizon, and the little eight year old instantly ran around the store looking at all the phones. “Mommy, this one is so big; can I have it, and what about this one?” screams the little girl. In today’s world, technology is flourishing and growing, and we live by it. Whether it is fighting to get the newest iPhone or purchasing a sixty-six inch TV screen, people cannot imagine life without technology and rely on it to do almost everything. However, technology can cause a loss of privacy, and today, Americans even lose individuality. Society and all its technological advances has a negative impact on today’s culture.

Throughout all of its years, this world has become a birthplace to numerous technological breakthroughs. From the invention of the very first wheel to today’s quantum supercomputers, it’s obvious that this world has always been technology driven. These advances have aided in areas such as agriculture, communication, travel, and leisure. Leisure is defined as “time free from the demands of work or duty, when one can rest.” People go about various ways of filling their spare time, whether it be spending time with family or playing video games with friends. Handheld digital devices, like the Nintendo DS, have been around for years but the use of technology did not seem to present a problem until smartphones and tablets became popular in the early 2000’s. It is very likely that a teenager will come in contact with one, two, or maybe even three digital screens throughout the course of his or her day. Just like gamblers, users of this technology are on the search for instant gratification and immediate responses. Teens utilize computers to search for information and complete schoolwork, cell phones to communicate and engage in social media, and televisions to binge watch episodes of their favorite show on Netflix. While many argue that teens are not negatively impacted by the constant use of technology, detrimental effects of screen obsessiveness have become a concern in a teenager’s ability to focus as well as maintain social interactions.

According to Libby Larsen, the great myth of our times is that technology is communication. Technology has become a big impact on today’s world. What would you do without your phone or computer for a day, week, or month? Is pretty much something to think about. Technology in today's world, is making it easier for us to become lazy. When I was younger, I didn’t have a smartphone. I had a regular old flip phone, where the only thing you can do is call, and answer. Technology has a negative impact on our society today with the following such as lack of social skills/social bonds, lack of focusing on what's important, and health problems.

Steven Spielberg once said, “Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we are too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.” This is an example on how telecommunications affect social interaction between people. As technology evolves, so does its negative outcomes towards young children. One can see that technology in cell phones are more harmful than beneficial since it creates distractions, cyberbullying, and connectivity to harmful predators.

Siri, Alexa, video games, smart cars, online customer support, security surveillance, Spotify, Pandora, Netflix. All of these applications are similar in one way: they’re all artificial intelligence. And whose to say it might take over the world one day. Our generation today has essentially grown up around the use of technology. By a young age, most children are able to work through a phone or computer/tablet to get the solution they need. This type of technology is right at our fingertips each and every day, allowing people to find and answer in a short amount of time. It is efficient, but is that always a good thing? Machines these days are taking over and they are everywhere you look. Many are being used very wisely, but some are being used in a feeble minded way. Many argue that by using artificial intelligence it will hurt our lives tremendously. However, the use of this global machinery clearly shows that it will give us a more prosperous and healthy lifestyle.

Technology; the rise or fall of our existing generations? Research has shown that technology impacts our thinking and mental processes. Unfortunately, the impacts do not appear to be in our favor. There are four categories that the negative impacts from technology usage, on the human mind, divide into. The categories are memory loss, alterations in our learning styles, adverse impacts on focus, and a diminishing mental importance of the physical world around you.

Technology has developed rapidly for decades and our societies have been influenced in many ways. Continuously, technology improvement is changing the method in which people are educated, how people work and how people live. Obviously, it brings much better convenience for people's living, however people are concerned about the negative effects of technological advances. In particular, the most notable worry about the negative impact of technology is that technology will surpass human skills and capabilities in the future. However, In The Second Machine Age, Brynjolfsson and McAfee explain that even if a machine takes the place of people's work in various workplaces, the machine will dominate and not be defeated because people have superior ability in terms of ideation. They said that Human ideas are an important key to success in human life rather than machines’ creative thinking. The ways for improving creative and critical thinking skill are getting Liberal Arts education and confidence. In Jones`s article “Liberal Arts, and the Advantages of Being Useless,” he said liberal arts education is leads to improve qualitative knowledge as well as leads to success. Also in Kay & Shipman article “The Confidence Gap”, they said confidence is important element for success. There are points of sameness which are can contribute to success. Liberal arts education and confidence can help you to think creatively. According to Brynjolfsson and McAfee, Jones and Kay & Shipman, we need to reconsider about the value of liberal arts education because liberal arts education can help critical thinking to be successful in the present day.