Technology As A Means To A Dystopian World

5 Ways You Give The Government Control” written by Kenneth Coats shows how the devices we use daily slowly take over individuals lives. Coats states, “Today, most people in the United States carry a mobile phone that accompanies them wherever they go. We use them for everything...This essentially makes them the perfect tracking and bugging devices”. Although electronic devices are known to be safe, they allow outside people to figure out individuals personal life. Due to the need for devices such as cell phones, each individual has a high chance of being socially stalked once in their lifetime. Coats then states, “Not only do intelligence agencies gather information via mobile companies, but… your phone can be hacked using spyware. Even if your phone is turned off, it can be remotely accessed to recorded conversations and take photographs”. This issue causes a panic due to the wide spread of inappropriate pictures and private conversations in one's life. Even though technology is viewed as a privileged, it is also taking away people's lives without their

In Esther Dyson’s “Cyberspace: If You Don’t Love It, Leave It”, the existence of the internet is seen as potentially dangerous to today’s society. Dyson insists that the internet was once a sanctuary for tech savvy individuals such as gamers and professionals like engineers. The author focuses on the negative websites and communities that are often found offensive to the majority. She thinks the World Wide Web harbors a lot of power. This power can be accessed and conquered easily by most of the population. According to Dyson, responsibility is the key to changing the future (295). Her argument is convincing but slightly unrealistic. The internet seems to be growing into a whole other alternate universe. Society’s rapidly growing technology industry will only be harder to regulate. Most people will do what they want, when they want especially when it comes to the internet.

Nicholas Carr is an American author who writes the majority of books and articles about the continuously evolving world of technology and how it is effecting our society. Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist and a New York Times bestseller. In this essay I will be rhetorically analyzing Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid” published in 2008. The purpose of Carr’s essay was to bring light to an issue that many of us face but only a meniscal few have come to terms with; and that is that technology is mentally incapacitating our society and simultaneously making us lazy. This essay was intended for anyone was has been consumed in today’s culture by new technological advances to the extent of not being able to function without some sort of device, IE cellphone, laptop or tablet on a daily basis.

The internet is an excellent place to explore our mind and put our thoughts together; however, it also has a negative effect to our brains, and the more we use it the more it decrease our intelligence. In this essay “Does the Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber?” by Nicholas Carr, he argues about the immoral side of the internet. According to Carr, “When we’re constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking” (22). Carr’s pint of view about the internet is that it does not make us smarter in any way; if anything it make us dense and slow. Scientific study have shown that most people who stayed on the internet quit a lot are more likely to damage their brains mentally. According to Carr, the internet is also a place to waste our time. Carr backed up his arguments with studies from scientists, researches and even books. In these essay, Carr’s appeals to logic and understanding is the strongest; whereas his appeals to ethos and his appeals to pathos are finite.

With the seemingly exponential propagation of inexpensive digital communications technologies over recent years, the general public is becoming more aware of the issues surrounding information privacy and government surveillance in the digital age. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a smart-phone has to be wary of how they use their private information for fear of that information being collected and used in a way contrary to their wishes. "Leaky" smartphone apps that transmit private information across the internet can be unethically used by government agencies. The issue of privacy is a balancing act; the public usually wants increased privacy and the government usually wants increased access.

The use of technology has catalyzed society into an era that is increasingly interconnected yet impersonal at the same time. Despite technology’s endless list of assets, many fail to acknowledge its shortcomings when mentioning what is lost as a result of using it. Although in “Great to Watch” by Maggie Nelson, she is not afraid to share her skepticism of technology, as well as the role it plays in desensitizing individuals on a day-to-day basis. The internet is an invaluable resource to many because it is a public domain for sharing ideas, opinions, and knowledge that any and everyone can have access to. In a sense, it does not restrict what someone may see or do, and this can either be a good thing or a bad thing. The booming use of new media

Technology has become more accessible to the point it has become easier for government to watch everyone's move. In this generation technology takes over everyone's daily life, where people wakes up and the first thing is look at is the phone. A phone there are many things on it, like text, pictures and videos. Phones can do many things, but there is a possibility where the government can tap into a phone and look through it. The government can watch everyone’s: text, history, private info, and pictures. Government has no right to looking through people’s personal info because it violates Fourth amendment, Blackmail, and Creates fear.

Although technology has provided tools to enhance our capabilities in things such as finding a missing person, solving murder cases based on technological assets etc.., this technology also leaves us vulnerable in many ways to slowly losing our privacy (Burten, C., 2012).

Throughout the course of history, humans have made great technological advancements. During the Renaissance, the printing press had revolutionized all of Europe; the accessibility of books had become universal, and people learned how to read and write. Because of the printing press, people became smarter and humanity had made a huge advancement into the modern world. In the 21st century, however, there is a growing issue; even though humans are becoming smarter, the human brain has suffered a negative impact from the internet. In the book, "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains," by Nicholas Carr, Carr discusses how the internet completely changes the way people think. Because of the internet, our ability to think deeply,

The Internet is the culmination of technological development. Thankful to it, humans have become multilaterally developed, the time has become a measure that has truly gained value, and science is more practical and accessible around the world. In his work:” The Shallows-What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains”, the publisher and author Nicolas Carr explains on his experience how the Internet besides its benefits has an enormous defect-distraction, lack of concentration on the meaning of things, or an event. In his speech, he mentions a habit that we practice daily and we do not realize his negative impact, namely the lack of concentration caused by “over welling urge to get up and check email, start clicking on links, do some googling” even

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

In this day and age, most human beings rely on computers almost daily. This is even more true of the Internet. There is a vast amount of information available at the users fingertips almost instantly. Nicholas Carr, author of the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" scrutinizes this and how this power affects people's brains. Carr, who is a Pulitzer finalist and accomplished author of successful books analyzing topics such as technology and culture believes that, because theat Internet is so heavily relied upon these days, our critical reading skills and ability to sit for extended periods of time and read books are deteriorating. Though Carr makes some valid points in his article, I do not think that the dystopian picture he paints is entirely accurate.

In modern Western societies the notion that surveillance is spreading while privacy is eroding is very well alive. Throughout history it has never been easier to access information about a specific person or groups of people then it is now. With technology available to almost everyone in modern society the ability to track, view, and gather information is greater than it has ever been. Many municipalities, companies, and even private home owners have implemented Closed Circuit Television in order to surveil people within the area they choose. Applications on phones, Computers, and Smart televisions are all things people use daily that surveil and track you, anything you send or view through technology can potentially be recorded for others to see. A person’s entire day can be tracked by simply following their footprints through technology, this means that “flying under the radar” is almost impossible unless you never leave your home and do not use any sort of technology. A big factor in collecting and storing data that surveillance technologies capture has come as a result of the Internet. Its worldwide availability has made people more educated through the sharing of knowledge, however, we have also given up a great deal of our privacy because of it.

In 1983, an invention was introduced that would shape the future of American society and interactions around the world. The society would begin to be centered around technology and shift online. A plethora of advantages and societal changes has sparked negative thoughts about how the internet has changed our lives. The ability for our computers to communicate has left us as easy targets for hackers and has sucked the American youth into a zombie like state into their phones. Many worry the internet is “degrading” our culture. When referring to the invention of writing and reading, Plato “denounced writing as inhuman and warned that writing weakened the mind and that it threatened to destroy people’s memory” (Furedi). People are often scared of new innovations because they are aware of its potential to revolutionize their culture. Adjusting to unfamiliar concepts and innovations can be uncomfortable and difficult for most people. Similarly, modern day sceptics look at the internet in a negative light because of its rapidly increasing impact on our society. What most tend to forget is the positive influences of the internet. The increased interconnection brought by the internet has led to a society that values productivity, rapid production of ideas, and social awareness.

In a world where technology is rapidly advancing and becoming intertwined with the daily happenings of an individual, a question arises concerning the ethics behind how the government uses this technology for surveillance and security. Whether the nation knows it or not, every phone call, text message, email, and even social media posts are collected and analyzed by the government. As a result of this collection of data, there is a growing concern for the issue of privacy with such a widespread form of surveillance, as a great number of individuals feel that they are experiencing a severe infringement on rights that they had previously considered impenetrable. Although individuals tend to see tactics used by the government as an infringement on one's rights and an invasion of privacy, these tactics and regulations can also be seen as ways to protect the nation and simplify the lives of others.