Technology is everywhere and advancing fast. In my household alone, there are 2 digital cameras, three televisions, four desktop computers, five laptops, six cellphones (most of which are smart phones), six ipods, and seven gaming devices. All of these items are used on a daily basis and some are even used for multiple hours a day. As with everyone in my household, my eyes just move from one screen to next. Our society today is completely surrounded by technology, but is this really a good thing? Will the impact of technology on our society be beneficial or detrimental?
First of all, lets start with how technology is beneficial to society. Technology gives people the ability to contact others and complete tasks easily and quickly. If I want to ask someone a question, I have the option of emailing, texting, facebook messaging, or tweeting them. If I was really adamant, I could do all four. It doesn't matter where that person lives, my message will get to them within seconds. Not only is technology great for fast communication, it also improves teaching and how students learn. In the Digital Nation documentary, adding technology into a school's classrooms improved the overall behaviour of the students. There was less fighting among fellow classmates and the students actually became excited to learn.
That was just a quick glimpse at how technology is actually improving society. Now lets take a look at the scarier side of things...
Technology may seem great but it can be quite detrimental, especially for the people who cannot control their usage. In my opinion the most harmful parts of technology are the video games. This is because video games can be very addictive to children and even some adults. In china there are video gaming cafes where children can play video games all day long. Multiple children have died in these cafes from playing the games for hours straight. Even though the result of death is only in extreme cases, playing video games still results in other unwanted side effects. As seen in the Digital Nation documentary, one child was so addicted to video games it was hard to get him to stop playing even just to eat dinner. Not to mention that ever since he started playing these games, his grades slipped significantly. The boy's mother even said that she feels as if she has lost her connection with her son. Excessive video game playing is just one of the many ways in which technology is harmful to our society today.
Technology is also detrimental to our society today because it results in a great loss of face to face interaction. All these electronic devices create a very convenient and fast way of communicating with others. However texting someone is just not the same as talking to them in person. In the Digital Nation documentary, there was a woman who had meetings with her co-workers through an online community where each person has their own avatar. They do business with each other but they have never met in person. Also in the documentary, a lot of adults participate in these online video games where they can interact with other players. They even consider the other players good friends even though they have never met in person. Even though these two examples are not necessarily harmful, they just go to show that the amount of face to face communication is decreasing. Technology is replacing normal human contact with cyberspace contact. Our society is losing a very big part of what it means to be human.
If it is not clear already, I am a technology pessimist. Even though I love my laptop, phone, and ipod dearly, I feel as though I'm trapped in technology. I don't necessarily think that the use of technology should be stopped, I just think that the usage should be controlled. Technology is creeping into every aspect of life and we have to stop it before it turns us into a completely different race. We must control technology, technology should not be controlling us.
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