Essay on How Much Technology Is Used Daily

In recent discussions of technology, a controversial issue has been whether technology is progressing or hindering society. On one hand, some argue that technology has progressed our society. Many argue that technology has simplified our lives and progressed the ways we live them, they are not completely wrong but there are many reasons why it isn’t as good as many claim it to be. On the other hand, however, some argue that technology has hindered society because it has made us addicted and has disrupted the way we critically think as well as the way we learn and pay attention to information given by professors. One of the views main proponents According to an article produced by the company “Mis Quarterly” “ One of the emergent technology-usage related problems that merits research at the individual, organizational, and societal levels is technology addiction (Block 2008), which is a special type of behavioral, non-substance addiction (Holden 2001). Because no uniform definition of this concept exists”. According to this view, technology has converted us into addiction without us realizing such an event is transpiring because of how overlooked addictions to technology have been in today’s society. In sum, the issue is whether technology progresses or hinders society. My view is that technology hinders society and has caused us to become addicted, as well as hinders our communication skills and can cause psychological problems if abused. Though I concede that technology has made daily life simpler, I still maintain that technology has caused us to be addicted and has hindered how we socialize, work, learn, and think. For example, technology has caused the social aspect of humanity to be lost, many of us rather talk to someone through text than in actual person, and has also caused us to lose touch with our logical and critical thinking. Although some might object that technology has made us a more educated country due to how easily accessible everything is I would reply that the technology we use only helps us to temporarily remember things and then forget about them because of the lack of interest happening in the everyday classroom.

Do you remember the times when you would go out with your friends and explore, ride bikes, play ball, and all those other fun activities done as a kid? Where have those times gone? It is disheartening and discouraging to see how technology has deprived the youth of experiencing all of these normal childhood events, although technology is the exact thing that is supposed to better the ways we live. We are aware of how much technology has managed to change over the years. New improvements have made plenty of us crave more and more of this new technology since it helps to make our lives simpler and in more ways than none it is a part of who we have become. As much as we all love being on our phones, computers, and other electronics they have negatively affected our society by making us unable to communicate and think logically as well as converting us into an idle species. Every couple of months there seems to be a new advancement that has to do with technology which is meant to simplify our lives. Smartphones are now owned by most people and seem to make communication easier through video chat or text, but in reality, they hinder our communication skills. These devices have slowly turned people into slaves having everyone putting time into their devices nonstop as if they were getting paid to do it, and have made our society a place where everyone is more comfortable communicating through text than in person as well as having turned us into a more awkward species as a whole avoiding or hiding behind our phone screen when facing a tough social situation or any social encounter. In the novel “New Dark Age Technology and the End of the Future” by author James Bridle, in chapter 6 (144) he claims “these systems are not merely contained in academic papers and consumer cameras- they are already determining the macro scale of people’s daily lives. In particular, the faith placed in intelligent systems…”. He is talking about how technology is already starting to take over society without us even knowing so, we are so dependable on these gadgets that every time there is something new being introduced we look at it with awe instead of questioning how it’ll harm us because society has always praised technological advances. The upcoming new technology can be scary due to how smart we are training these machines to be, in the chapter, the author progresses to claiming how technology will soon overrun humanity and we will have no way of stopping it because of how smart these machines will be and are starting to become.

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Similarly, the extreme use of technology has caused us to lack thinking skills such as logical thinking, creativity, and communication as well as social skills. Many of today’s society cannot express themselves emotionally or express their opinions because they are afraid of backlash or too scared of showing their emotions. People in today's world think and do everything to please everyone but themselves which leads to my next point of internal problems caused by technology, social media, etc. Issues such as anxiety, depression, lack of confidence, and loneliness can all be caused by these so-called gadgets that are supposed to help us out by simplifying our daily lives. Spending too much time with technology on social media or phones, in general, can cause us to always judge ourselves based on how others perceive us. The abusive use of technology has led many students to stop reading books, articles, journals, etc. which is a reason why most lack the idea of critical thinking and is also why many lack vocabulary and creativity. All of these claims don’t have to be scientifically proven but are logical, I mean look around it’s just the saddening truth. In many classrooms, we have all experienced seeing a fellow student or being the student who’s on their phone rather than paying attention to the professor. Many of us think school is the worst and that’s just honesty, it does help us learn a lot of new material but overall no one likes to do all the work that is necessary to succeed, and what is a better way to distract ourselves than with our handheld devices. They have disrupted our education and distracted us from all the important material professors give us to analyze and not to mention our critical thinking is affected because everybody is so used to just googling whatever they have trouble with and are too lazy to ever go in-depth and feed their brain new ideas. In the article “The Dark Side Of Educational Technology” by the web source “The Advocate” “A study by the Josephson Institute of Ethics interviewed 23,000 high school students and asked them a variety of questions about academic ethics. Of the teens surveyed, 51 percent said that they had knowingly cheated at some point on an exam but that they had no qualms about the behavior. A Common Sense Media survey found that 35 percent of students had cheated via cell phone”. Our education is being affected by how simply we can find answers to anything, we do not have time to study but we can spend our entire day attached to our cell phones and still pass a class without learning anything. These “shortcuts” have cost us our viable learning skills and have made learning overrated.

On the contrary, Technology does have many advantages that make life simpler, such as simplifying how we communicate with people around the world, finding cures for diseases, and providing our younger generations with educational apps so they can learn materials before actually entering school. We have apps like Google and Siri that help us in ways ranging from the newest music to problems happening around the world and across America. It also helps us by making research easier as well as making communication with our peers outside of the classroom more reliable even being able to work from home has been made simpler through our laptops and even cell phones. Many people can now work for their jobs or schools online and get paid to just relax and work on their assignments from the comfort of their own homes without going through all the stress that occurs in the everyday workplace. Businesses heavily depend on websites and social media to get their business up and running or to promote and make sales. Technology is the reason our country is very advanced and has some of the richest people in the world, many of these people have created ideas that have advanced our world such as self-driving cars, light-speed internet, and even life-changing ideas such as apps that teach people how to be brokers and work the stock market, which is something that anyone can know learn and creates wealth without the process of killing yourself physically or mentally. College is not a necessity anymore due to the number of opportunities you can find on social media or working with technologies that can generate great amounts of wealth for you. Although these are very positive ideas, the reality it is that technology has turned us into indolent people wanting everything at the tips of our fingers and made us too impatient to do simple tasks such as going out to eat on our own. An example is the service “Postmates” which is a service where you can order any type of food from any restaurant from your phone and it sends nearby people working for the service to go to the restaurant, pick up your food, pay, and deliver it to your doorstep. Although the app is very convenient it is very worrying that we have become too lazy to even go to a restaurant and order our food. It is saddening how technology has made everything a shortcut and although it isn’t a terrible matter it has deprived us of living our normal lives how many generations anterior have lived them, which adds to the reason why many of our generations aren’t as hard-working as previous ones as well as distracted and more ignorant to important entities such as our jobs, education, and social lives.

Ultimately I believe that technology has hindered many of today’s society either by taking away childhood experiences or having our generations lack creativity and critical thinking skills. Although it has many simplicities it has caused us to fully rely on it to the point where we cannot think for ourselves or communicate with others as well as making us lazier than ever. Although technology has benefited us by helping simplify how we live our daily lives, created many job opportunities as well as made education simpler, and made today’s society more outspoken having a platform where others can support you has become something this generation needed. Technology has plenty of positives but it is still extremely unhealthy how dependable we are to it and how much time we spend on our handheld devices every day. Our society has become very anti-social because many of us rather stick to social media and would rather choose to talk through a cell phone rather than have an in-person conversation. Unless we are willing to take a step back from these devices, not abuse the use of these advancements, and realize how much harm these technologies are doing to us, we will keep on stumbling down this rabbit hole we have created until it consumes us fully as a whole.