Research Essay Draft.In a week alone, the average teen will send 854 texts, spends 31 hours on a computer and watch 21 hours of television. We are under an impression that social media and technology is constantly improving life, keeping us connected, and saving lives, however we do not look at the bigger picture and watch how it negatively impacts us, keeping us from human interaction where our eyes are constantly glued to our screen, and causing life threatening mental illnesses. Students in schools spending more time texting the person next to them then learning the work. Children being lost into the online world rather than developing social skills and venturing outside their comfort zones trying new things outside in the real world. As a modern day teenager growing up in the digital age, I see the impacts first hand, watching the newest fad PlayStation game, consume all the spare time of my friends, drawing us apart as we are forced to learn the ‘new and improved’ way of learning, to point where it becomes an essential to our everyday life and we become a different, useless type of person when it is taken away from us, and I think we need to be scared for whatever the future holds, because this is only the start.
Technology has come a long way since the invention of the wheel, but is it all good for us? We are convinced it is improving our quality of life, making the simple things easier and making us smarter as a race, but little do we understand the long lasting damage it is doing to us pulling us apart as individuals instead of bringing us together. Children growing up in today’s age are learning how to use an iPad before learning to walk, having more games on the iPad than friends at school, spending their lunchtimes gaming in the classroom instead of learning human interaction. It is something that is constantly overlooked, the rapidly increasing infestation of technology into our lives, and the drastic affects it has on our everyday life, burying itself deep into our heads causing lifetime damage to the most important part of the body. The forever debated topic of whether technology and personal devices are beneficial towards children in school time is something that needs to be looked at closer. The type of people we want our children to become is turning out to be the opposite by feeding them iPads to keep them quiet and keeping them updated with the new iPhone at age 5 instead of lacing up the shoes and exploring the outside world developing lifelong skills. However, this long-lasting issue is debated that technology and the use of devices is a benefit to children’s learning and that the children of today are now the smartest generation we have ever seen, learning faster than ever before all with the help of modern day technology.
The reliance of technology in society is staggering. Although many will use and publicize modern technology for many of its achievements and advancements, what many don’t realize is that it has affected and continues to affect society and people in general in a negative way. Ruining our education, causing mental illness and cyber bullying leading to suicide through social media, sacrificing our health and exercise and limiting the face to face interactions we have with those we love.
In many sources it states that the internet gives children a wider access to information, in school time, with internet access, children can learn quicker and faster. This false Information is proved in accurate in numerous other sources as it states that students that didn’t use laptops or digital devices in class or lectures did better in their exams than those who chose to use computers and access the internet. An experiment was put in place to understand if technology was a benefit to children for learning. The results showed that computer devices have a substantial negative effect on academic performance,” the researchers concluded, suggesting the distraction of an electronic device with internet access outweighed their use for note-taking or research during lessons. It has been proven that Technology can take away the creativity in both the teachers and the students according, as technology does the thinking for both the students and the teacher. Not knowing how to use technology properly takes away from valuable teaching time in the classroom. This is another downfall of using technology in the classroom, as well as this, it isn’t surprise that Technology does not work for every student and in that it sets most of them up for failure. The reliance on technology results in isolation.
With social media occupying the majority of our schedules, the amount of conversations we engage in daily are limited to a text or phone call. Physical interaction is crucial to human health as it is vital for bonding and creation of relationships. However, with technology use, it creates online social networks that result in constant and quick communications.
However, it reduces face-to-face communication, personal contact with others and engagement in social activities with families and friends and as important as family bonding is, this advancing technology is destroying this important quality time. Isolation causes strained relationships, loneliness and depression. Studies have shown that teens who use Facebook tend to be more narcissistic, antisocial, and aggressive. Cyber bullying is harming young teenager’s minds, with social media being the new thing for students to anonymously pick on one another, there’s been a massive increase in physical violence in schools, as well as an all-time high statistic in teen suicides. Bullies, torment, threat, harass, and even embarrass their victims by using different forms of social media. Using social media can also decrease privacy for an individual as people often give out their personal information not knowing who can see it.
People do not even think about what they are posting might get them in trouble. Posting their phone number or where they live may not seem dangerous to them at the time until something happens to them because they posted that personal information. When you are online, you can be whoever you want to be because people cannot actually see you and that is the dangers the children of today are facing.
Last of all recent studies show a worldwide trend of decline in physical activity driven by the use of technology. The rise of computers and video games has made it easy for kids to be entertained without ever leaving home or even the comfort of their chair which is adding to the increasing rates in childhood obesity.. They spend more time on the computer, on their phone, or watching TV rather than exercising and staying healthy. Approximately ten percent of preschool age children and fifteen percent of six to nineteen year olds can be considered overweight due to technology. The opposing point of view is that technology is an integral part of our daily lives.
There are so many advantages with improved technology in our daily life. With the help of mobile technology, we are able to talk to our friends and relatives who are living far from us. One study found that television viewing between ages three and five it slightly helped their reading scores. However, other studies have linked early television viewing with later attention problems, such as ADHD. One study found that television viewing before age three will slightly hurt several measures of later cognitive development.
I believe that technology brings a lot of negative effects to our personal and social lives. We now depend on technology, which affects us and causes us to get bad habits. Technology has caused addiction to the internet, depression, isolation, anxiety, loss of job, marital difficulties and it has also affected our social skills. It causes less timer interacting with your family and friends.
Your internet addiction also leads to having online affairs causing separation from your family. An expert says she has treated suicidal patients who had lost jobs and whose marriages were had been destroyed because of their addictions.” In conclusion, technology does help us in many ways but unfortunately a lot of people in our society have become addicts to the use of technology, whether it’s the usage of internet or the usage of wireless devices and it is not improving.
