The Industrial Revolution (1970s) would be considered the start of what I call “America’s Breaking Point”. I say this because the Industrial Revolution was the point of time in America where America’s technology advancement started to grow rapidly. According to “The Third Industrial Revolution: Technology, Productivity, and Income Inequality”, “The Industrial Revolution produced a handful of miracles, but many historians also view it as an age of continuous and gradual smaller innovations—an age of learning.” (Greenwood, 4).
Jeremy Greenwood is a economist professor at the University of Pennsylvania and has taught there since 2006. Today’s technology has changed the way people move. We have people on their phones, computers, or using apps more often for hours a day.
The gadgets we use for long hours on a daily basis are designed to steal our attention and are fastly becoming more addictive. I often think how would this generation would survive without the use of technology? People say our ancestors survived thousands of years without it, so of course we could. On the other hand, others say no we can’t because technology is a useful tool for evolution.
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As i looked upon the issue and problem, the boom of technology as it is becoming more and more advanced has made us dependent/lazy on it because we don’t have to do the work for ourselves anymore because technology seems to have all the answers to our problems. Technology is very useful in certain ways, but we are taking advantage of technology because it was created to make bigger problems in our world easier. If technology was not to popular and made to where we could only get ahold of it for only useful problems, we would not have this worldwide problem to face.
Everything in this world was created for a reason. It is fair to say that technology has helped us so much and has made our world a easier place. I believe technology was created to help make difficult situations easier for us. According to “Technology And Health: Is The Digital World Hurting Us Or Making Things Easier?”, Michael Oliveira stated, “While old skills are no doubt fading away, technology is leading to the creation of new skills, which come with a new set of expectations”.
Michael Oliveira is a reporter and commicationalist for StMikes Hospital. This is significant because one time, there was no electricity and our ancestors found a way to live without it. They found ways to make living work and had to do the work the hard way. Today, the hard work no doubt is done for us. We don’t have to do the dirty work because by technology being so advanced, it gets the job done for us.
As you can see, technology has its advantages and disadvantages, but I want to to know why are we so dependent on technology? Technology has bought us cars, radios, ipads, etc. Technology has provided us with all them wonderful items, but are we using them for the right reason. According to Jon Capistrano, “Are We Too Dependent on Technology?”, he mentioned that “The world is evolving to incorporate technology into every facet of our lives”.
Some people say we are losing our old traditional way of living. Traditional way as in taking care of ourselves when we didn’t have technology. When we didn’t have google maps, we would actually read a map to find out where we going. Now google maps our best friend and we use it everywhere we go. Also, we won’t put our phones down. That is how you know we are too dependent on technology. I don’t think nobody can live without their phones.
We text all day, stay on the phone all day, and keep our phones charged all day. On the other hand, others say no we are not too dependent on it. They say technology is not the problem, but it is the way we use it is the problem. The main reason for technology was to make life easier. Jon Capistrano, “Are We Too Dependent On Technology?”, said we should use technology as a tool instead of using it as a figure just to escape reality.
This is significant because for example, people who sit on the game (XBox, PlayStation, etc) make it seem like that’s the only thing they care about, like there isn’t an outside world. Games like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto 5 are all games the mimic the real world. I, myself, find it hard as well to get off the game. I spend countless hours on the game because it is so fun. What purpose am I serving by being on the game for unnecessary amount of time? Anyone who is playing the game that long could be studying instead of wasting their time.
We can’t deny that technology is changing our daily life and life without technology cannot be imagined. We start off our days with technology and end up with it. There hardly is a thing we do without technology being used. Though there are some disadvantages we face and deal with but the benefits and uses are certainly greater than the disadvantages. The advantages technology benefits our world economically, and has improved the education, social, and wealth systems.
First of all, technology has made it easier for students like me while in school. Technological gadgets with mobile apps make it easier for me to access and learn educational material online. According to “10 Uses of Technology in Our Daily Life”, there are apps like Coursera, Khan Academy, or Duolingo, who has helped students learn about material in various subjects like math, english, or science (Ramey).
Personally, Khan Academy is one of the best websites to learn material for any class within any subject. I used Khan Academy specifically for my Information Technology class and it was very helpful and helped me learn material I did not understand. Secondly, technology has made it easier for people to communicate. Hundreds of years ago, there was no social media, so the only way people would communicate would be by walking or by writing letters to one another, which took long.
Today, communication is worldwide. We have Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. According to Dave Chaffey, “Global social media research summary 2018”, the number of internet users worldwide in 2018 is 4.021 billion and the number of social media users worldwide in 2018 is 3.196 billion. Dave Chaffey is a author and cofounder of the online marketing Smart Insights. Our generation is lucky enough to be able to connect with friends and family from the past and now present, rather it be from down the street, different states, or across the ocean. We do not have to write letters, which usually takes a week until the letter is received successfully.
Lastly, Hospitals are way better and prepared than they were hundreds of years ago. Hundreds of years ago, I bet you didn’t know that life expectancy of humans did not last long, due to poor sanitation, lack of medical resources, and prolong diseases which we couldn’t even cure like we could now. Now today, we have the proper materials to treat diseases and help people out.
Just as you might think technology is helping us, it is actually destroying us. Every street I walk down, there are more phones in peoples hands rather than a textbook. What makes technology so addicting? It affects young people more than it does with older adults. It affects us more because we were born during the time technology became widely adopted. Many of the drawbacks of technology include negative impact on our memory, cause bad eyesight and sleep deprivation. Firstly, multitasking is bad, especially for a student.
For example, If i’m in the back of the classroom sitting down, suppose to be learning. Instead of learning the new material the teacher is teaching, I am too focused on my phone playing Candy Crush, but I glance up at the board whenever I feel the need to. Therefore, by being on my phone all the time, I won’t know or remember any on the material I am suppose to be learning. Secondly, it causes bad vision. Everybody has been in front of a screen long enough where their eyes has started to hurt.
“Technology may have negative social effect on kids” by Maddy French mentioned, “Children between the ages of eight and 10 years old spend more than seven hours a day using technology, and teenagers average more than 11 hours”. Maddy French is a author at Daily Universe, a student newspaper. Starting to use technology at a young age will increase a child’s ability to most likely become blind. Children love technology, so looking at it all day will hurt them. Lastly, children who has access to technology will not go to sleep.
According to “The Real Effects of Technology on Your Health”, we need about 9 hours of sleep each day on average to be fully woke. If you do not get enough sleep, your body won’t respond right (“The Real Effects”). If I fall asleep during class, I won’t be learning anything. Therefore, my grades will suffer and I will be failing my classes. Currently, I get about five hours of sleep, and if i’m lucky enough six. I be so tired that I barely pay attention in class because all I think about is going to sleep.
It seems that we are all becoming more dependent on our technological gadgets. Addiction comes first, next comes dependency, and lastly comes laziness. We are living in a era where our gadgets are taking up all of our time, distracting us. First and foremost, for example, we are addicted to our Iphones.
According to Here’s How Many iPhones Are Currently Being Used Worldwide by Don Reisinger, “Apple hasn’t, however, been shy about promoting its iPhone sales. Last July, for instance, Apple said that it had sold its billionth iPhone. The company was able to reach the milestone in about nine years after the iPhone’s initial release in 2007”. Don Reisinger is a author/entrepreneur for many magazines. We are enslaved to what we could do on them then how the phone looks.
With iphones, you may have up to 256 gb in storage, Siri, and the internet. All of these features attract us to the point where it encourages us to use it more, which is the reason why we can’t seem to keep our hands off it. This results in our dependency of technology. Back then, we did not have phones with the internet.
Now, iphones include “Hey Siri”. Siri is a iphone personal assistant. You say “hey Siri” and ask her to do anything and she will listen and do it. She even gives you answers to questions. Therefore, we don’t have to do the work or think for ourselves because technology seems to have all the answers. Lastly, dependency brings our laziness. As I mentioned before your phones include personal assistants such as Siri and she does anything you ask her to do. We also be on our phones for hours.
We do not do anything for ourselves anymore. She gives us the answers to all our questions and does what we want her do which stops us from allowing to think and do tasks for ourselves. Being on the phone all day is dangerous. We could physically go to someone house and talk to them, but since our batteries in our phones can last almost a whole day, we just call them instead and be on the phone for hours. When we didn’t have phones back then, we walked to that person’s house.
Technology has evolved around us for hundreds of years. Hundreds of years ago, we only used technology for useful reasons. As technology has gotten more advanced, we have become addicted to having it in our faces 24/7 and we can not go for more than a hour without looking at a screen.
There are ways to limit our use of technology. Those ways consist of turning your notifications off during night time, schedule times each day when you should take a break from using your technology, and distract ourselves. The first way I said we could manage our screen time would be to turn your notifications off during night time.
For example, I sleep with my phone on the charger laying right next to me. When I am trying to sleep and I hear a notification go off, I immediately look at phone. Looking at our phones during the night disrupts our sleep, making us get less sleep during the night and staying up for longer hours. According to “Get in Sync”, the article stated that just how we turn our devices off so they can reboot, we need to reboot ourselves as well.
Laine Bergeson Becco is a health journalist and nutrition educator. This is important because our bodies need the right amount of sleep, meaning not too much nor too less. Having a good well rest will tell our body when to wake up or lay down. Another way to limit our use to technology would be to schedule a time when we should take a break from screen time. We do not need technology 24 hours a day. According to “How to Break Free of Tech Addiction”, adults spend more than three hours a day using their smartphones (Perry). Mo Perry is a freelance writer. Her writings appeared in several magazines.
This is significant because not only looking at the screen is bad, looking at screens for a long time causes headaches and blindness. For example, staring at bright lights for long periods of time causes my head to start hurting, then I will down for a little while. Lastly, in order to limit technology use, we must distract ourselves from using our phones. For example, we could distract ourselves by getting involved with sports, such as basketball or soccer. This distraction not only allows us to stay off our phones, but it also helps us manage our physical health in general and protect us from screen damage.
To sum it all up, technology was made for making difficult tasks much easier, but most importantly have forced us into a lazy-minded state. Technology has flaws and it also has its benefits. The benefits of technology leans towards making difficult tasks in our life easier and making time to get things done in a shorter amount of time. The flaws of technology is most likely saying that technology is a huge distraction. With all being presented, The use of technology has gotten more advanced, it has prevented us for thinking and doing for ourselves.
As mentioned before, we did not have technology back then, so we were forced to think and handle difficult task on our own. Technology seems to know all the answers to our needs. Technology may be addicting addictive, but we can find ways to limit our use as well. Those ways consist of turning our phones off, setting a time when to take a break from screen time, and we may also distract ourselves from using our phones. Everything we do we don’t need a gadget.
