Technology And Technology : The Negative Effects Of Technology

Technology has always been a controversial subject between conservative people and innovators. Some people believe that it is a great tool to connect cultures and improve education and innovation in our society today, but others view it as a menace in our lives. “Growing Up Tethered” by Sherry Turkle and “George Orwell...Meet Mark Zuckerberg” by Lori Andrews both view technology as a dangerous tool. They believe in the many drawbacks of technology and the harm it can do to our lives with no explanation of the positive effects it has had on our society. “Our Future Selves” by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen plays the role of a positive look at technology and its role in our lives today. It gives examples of how advancing technology helps us and improves so many peoples’s lives. We can use Schmidt and Cohen’s essay as a lens to view the other two texts and gain a different understanding of what they are writing about.

Technology is as much of a distraction as it is an asset. It took me 30 minutes to begin this essay because my phone is right next to me, and I got a text. A single message turned into a full conversation along with an update on multiple social media apps. I was annoyed with my phone because it distracted me from my essay, but how could I stay mad at something so important to me? Without my phone I doubt I could be a functioning adult. I couldn’t have bought my Starbucks this morning, I used the mobile app, and I couldn’t have boarded my plane, my boarding pass was sent to my email, and I couldn’t have called an Uber to get back to school.

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 diffusing and changing drastically; opening more possibilities for newer and undiscovered innovations to take over. Technology can be found anywhere from phones to cars that people drive every day. As technology advances, scientists and doctors have started an altercation between those who believe new tech will teach communities and strengthen our knowledge and others who believe that inventing untested gadgets will only corrupt the nation and affect students at work. 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.

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

As I said in my previous essay, not many people realize it, but the human race desperately depends on technology for existence. Although depending on things such as computers, cellular devices, and search engines comes with very helpful and developmental research, it has also come with many negative effects. Technology has literally affected all aspects of life for every living person. To the point where it has made people lazy, taken their jobs, and has even made people addicted to social networking. Some examples of problems are constant use of social media, texting and driving incidents, cyberbullying, and even cheating on tests or exams. I believe that we’ve become evermore negatively dependent on technology because humans now feel the need to socialize and connect with one another more frequently than they did before the turn of the 21st century.

Albert Einstein once said “ I fear that technology will surpass our interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” Many people tend to think that technology is one of the best things to ever happen , but others believe that it is starting to have a negative effect on humanity. There are many different types of technology, but the two most commonly used are cell phones and computers. Our generation is being raised alongside technological evolution. Individuals use technology everyday for many different occasions, whether it be for work, school, or just to play video games. People don’t realize that they could outside enjoying their life and having fun, but instead they choose to stay inside on their computers or cellphones. Humans are being taught that technology is the reason behind everything that is happening in society today. Technology is supposed to make life easier for everyone. While it is true that technology contributes a lot of good to the world today, it has not came without a price. There are various negative effects that technology has caused in today’s generation. Technology is negatively affecting humankind because it is making people depressed, it is beginning to make individuals simple minded, people are becoming addicted to their technology, and because it is starting to make human beings do things that will put them in dangerous situations.

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.

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.

Over the years, technology has changed dramatically and with new technologies always being created, the amount of change will never lower. However, when technology changes, so do the problems and inconveniences that come along with it. It is when we need technology the most that it always seems to cause trouble. Be it your phone battery dieing, your laptop updating while you are taking notes for class, or your system crashing causing you to lose all your progress on a project or in a game. While these are not guaranteed to happen to everyone, they still do occur and cause problems for those who have to deal with them.

If the world went without technology for at least a day, how would we react? would people go crazy and wonder around like it’s the end of the world? I believe that technology is affecting us negatively and harming us because we are treating it as our number one source in our lives.

With human’s creating high technology we have forever transformed the way we live, even the way we feel. Technology has changed the way we think without us ever even realizing it. We have information at our fingertips making the way we receive information forever. No longer do we have to search the library's for our papers. Even the way we socialize has changed. We simply go on an app to look at others across the world or to communicate. But this doesn't mean it’s not having a negative effect on us. T.M Luhrmann states “Nobody thinks for themselves anymore.” We simply just take what other’s say and believe it’s real. In T.M Luhrmann article “ Is The World More Depressed” explains that it has been recently learned that Facebook leads people to feel less about themselves in a single moment with their lives. One of those reasons being because they see others post these most flattering, beautiful photo’s and funny comments when their lives feels so gray and dull. This leading to sadness which soon could lead to depression. With social media increasing we have become to have a greater awareness of other people and where we stand in social space.

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.

Mornings are associated with many things: a tasty drink of piping hot coffee, the sound of birds chirping, moving into a nice, long stretch, the smell of fresh bacon cooking on the stove, and occasionally running downstairs to check for gifts underneath the Christmas tree. They are also associated with alarm clocks, starting the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and daily routines. Think about your daily routine. Do you read the newspaper? Do you eat breakfast? Do you brush your teeth? For many people, their day starts with megabytes, pixels, screens, blue light, and wifi. The first thing they do in the morning is turn off their alarm, which is on their phone, and check their social medias, which is on their phone. News, music, and games can all be found in one’s pocket. Phones can do many amazing things. As arguably the most often used technological device, phones are both an example and a cause of what technology can do to a society. However, there are some disadvantages to the virtual reality we are living in today. To make myself clear, we are losing key listening and communication skills because of technology.

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.