Positive And Negative Impact Of Technology

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.

Young people spend 27 or more hours a week on the Internet (Anderson). As society moves on, technology will keep spreading and changing drastically. Technology can be found anywhere from phones, to cars that people drive everyday. With technology, writing a simple essay has never been easier. Although people view technology as an important tool of the future, technology can be more harmful to society as students become distracted, leading to health concerns, and influencing people to cyberbully.

From the telegram to the cell phone, technology has been vital in keeping communication alive and efficient in the world. It no longer takes days for an important message to reach someone because it was sent by pigeon or in the mail. Apps like Skype even allow for people to see each other face to face who otherwise may not have a chance to. Yet even with these advantages, it is still argued that technology has decreased social tendencies of teenagers. This isn’t necessarily true though and some may instead say that social interactions have just taken a new form. Teenagers today are just as social today as they were years ago and maybe a little more due to technology because of convenience, the efficiency of sending messages, and natural protection making it easier to spread views on a topic.

Do you think Bill Gates or Steve Jobs ever envisioned that their technological advances would actually have negative consequences? Most phones and devices used in society today come from the ideas that these two men had. What Jobs and Gates didn’t realize is that there are negative effects stemming from overuse of these devices and people need to be aware of them. Even though our state of the art, handheld computer/phone devices have made everyone’s lives remarkably easier, using too much of any one thing is a recipe for disaster. This is true for technology as well. The impact of round the clock use of these devices and technology in our everyday lives can be harmful to our emotional, physical, and mental health, but there are ways to minimize the harmful effects that our devices and technology are having on us.

Modern Technology has had a great deal of influence on how we process information in the twenty-first Century. Business flourishes with the use of e-mails to send for conferences or important information in seconds, while the use of Skype has vastly increased how they interact in conferences from all over the world. News was once posted once a day only through the papers and television, if the information was not seen then it was not known to have happen whereas today, anytime of the day, current or former information can be accessed. Children today will be interacting with their friends in seconds and do not have to make plans ahead of time. However, people have abused how the Internet was intended to be which has led to some undeniable, severe consequences. Technology has negatively impacted how humans communicate through replacing the human connection, making peoples attention span shorter than it used to be, and providing a need for people to receive shallow and instant gratification about how people view a topic.

Technology has made many positive changes in our society such as increase in our knowledge and understanding of the world we live in. Whether it is via the television, internet or audio files we have greater understanding of the environment and our impact on the world both in negative and positive terms.

Not too long ago, most work was done through sturdy physical and mental capabilities. Humans as mostly progressive beings continue to evolve, constantly feeling the urge to rise to the apex versions of themselves. However, will humans rise only to fall? Well there are both sides to everything and the possibility of technology bringing society to its knees has sparked a lot of controversies and this essay…….( Naf, if the argument is about positive effect of tech, what should the thesis be?)

While thinking about technology created by mankind, look at carbon dioxide gases produced by burning fossil fuels, resulting in the greenhouse effect. The power of the atom for nuclear power plants or the power of the atomic bomb. The use of Freon used in cooling systems for refrigeration to preserve food has caused holes in the ozone. Technology used today has provided people the advantage of having more leisurely time. Having gained time, we can choose to use it in productive or self-destructive ways.

88 percent of teenagers, ages 13 to 17 have a smartphone, or have access to a smartphone. (www.growingwireless.com) Due to the fact that people are exposed to technology at a young age, they become very reliant on technology for the remainder of their lives. Throughout the years technology has evolved to make people’s lives easier, possibly too easy. As the generations evolve, people are forgetting how to live their lives without a cell phone, iPad, or laptop, which is causing people’s social skills and independence to become much worse than those of people’s just a decade ago. Millennials have the reputation of constantly being glued to their cell phones and are seen as being addicted to their devices twenty four seven. Technology is detrimental to today’s society and has negative long-term effects, because it causes people to become lazy, it is a distraction, and people are being cyberbullied.

Whether you are a geek buying the latest smartphone, game console, and latest apple products or you are just the minimalist who only has the necessary smart devices like your phone and maybe a laptop it is undeniable that technology is making it’s way into every nook and cranny of modern society. Owning your own car was treated as a freedom back in the eighties but now owning a car is starting to become a thing of the past as companies such as UBER and Lyft are replacing taxies but making a new form of public transportation constantly available almost everywhere around the world. Even though technology has basically taken over every aspect of our lives does not mean that every person has embraced it with open arms. These days we still have an ongoing debate about whether smart devices and the internet are helping or hurting society as a whole or not. Enthusiasts on this topic tend to look at a more optimistic view on this new technological age expressing how they think that robots and artificial intelligence will change our world for the better both Kevin Kelly’s “Better than Human”, Clive Thompson’s “Smarter than You Think”, as well as Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld’s “The Influencing Machines” explore. On the other hand, skeptics tend to write about how these new technologies are tainting our own capabilities and making us more dependent rather than relying on our own skills says Nicholas Carr in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. Although technology has

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.

Electronics is one of the most advanced tools of our modern time. Humans have been able to develop electronics that can enhance their lives on a significant scale. Over time, the human race has been able to cultivate new ideas and thinking that can help develop new ways our lives can grow with technology. In the short span of twenty years, we have seen the growth of technology age like a child to an adult. We have seen in a short amount of time the remarkable progress of intellectual creativity in the sense that many inventors and ideologist are always discovering new ways technology can be of use. However, with the coming and complexity of these technological advances, we are seeing adverse effects beginning to arise among the population; especially the youth. We are seeing consistent and relative patterns of drawbacks trending among society that is starting to cause a problem amongst our growing children. The next generation of leaders and progressors are no longer thinking on their own. As technology continues to evolve among the crop of growing kids and young adults, self-developmental issues continue to arise such as lack of intellectual independence, a decrease in stimulation of social growth, and even contributes to a rise of health issues. These insightful youths are beginning to lose their touch of self-sufficiency with every new version of the iPhone introduced. While technology can be beneficial and assist us in growing in a much broader intellectual capacity, the rate at which we use technology is as hurtful as it is helpful.

Throughout history, technological advances have been an effective way for the media to get information out to society, whether it was factual or not. Technology affects almost every aspect of society and can be used as a device to spread the word which alters the way that many people live their lives. In the graphic novel “The influencing machines”, written by journalist Brooke Gladstone and cartoonist Josh Neufeld, the authors embrace the reluctant views towards the history of technology while arguing the positive and negative effects when dealing with false accusations that are brought to people's attention. People don’t fear technology itself, they fear the unknown effects that could be brought upon them in their future. Although everyone has the ability to make their own decisions and believe what they choose, the media has a huge influencing factor in the way we view, analyze, and talk about news.

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.

There will always be problems in the world no matter what we do. Even when new technology is created to fix many problems, it just brings a whole set even new problems to society. Technology changes so much in a short span of time that the negative effects are very visible extremely fast. Although technology seems to become more advanced each day, it has many negative effects such as the lack of privacy, lack of social skills, and the decline in health in people today.