The Negative and Positive Effects Of Technology

Technology has and always will be a dominant part of our world over the years, especially in the lives of teenagers and young adults. The obsession with liking, sharing, and tweeting has come to a peak within the past years. Most individuals who use their phones daily would argue that this is the way things should be. However, those against technology are afraid that it will soon take over the world and destroy many as many lives as possible. But is there a way that technology and people can coexist and live happily with one another without there being any issues? Even though there are many positive factors about technology and how much it helps people, it can also jeopardize the privacy of those that use it, bring and wanted to health problems, and caused many social problems.

So what are positive and negative effects of technology?

Over the past years, since the beginning, The world has become obsessive posting about anything and everything they are doing and even eating.

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More recently, the younger generation has become enamored with posting their location. It always happens that whenever he or she arrives at any location, it shows up in every possible form of social media. As described by Matthew Honan in his article 'Location-Aware Lifestyle,' he calls today's generation of teenagers a very 'Location-Aware' group. Further elaborating, he means to say that people are posting and tagging their location at all times.

They use anything from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and GPS locators to let other people know where they are at all times. In today's society, there's no privacy whatsoever, which leaves most of today's society shivering with concern.

Although technology jeopardizes their user's privacy, it also changes the way individuals communicate with one another. Not only teens but everyone is always constantly on their phones, rather than talking to one another or interacting face-to-face. Retweeting and messaging one another rather than talking to each other, using FaceTime instead of hanging out in person, and texting to get a quicker answer instead of calling to hear an actual person's voice has done more damage to the way people communicate today. One on one communication has been lost and missed connections happen more than real conversations.

In most cases, technology has its best peaks. For example, Technology in the medical field saves more lives now than it ever has. Comparing how the medical field was from the past up until now, there sure has been a lot of changes. People receive pacemakers and are connected to machines at saving lives every day and without that technology, our population would surely die off. But sure social health can be important in some ways, but so is a person's mental and physical health. Now focusing on the negative connotation of technology, it has been said to cause injuries such as neck pains from looking down at her phone, headaches from staring at a computer screen for too long, hearing loss from headphones, and wristbands from typing. Even though headphones can cause hearing loss, they bring so much joy to those that use them. Music has brought people out of drastic medical states such as comas and has given memory back to those that have diseases such as Alzheimer's, but it also alters of the mental state of users by causing sleep problems, anxiety, decreased attention span, stress, and depression. Worst of all, some cases of cancer have been traced back to small traces of radiation emitted by devices, as well as some cases of obesity that are traced back to people just staying on the device longer instead of exercising.

In regards to financial health, the US news and world report states that Americans spend the equivalent of 17% of their monthly mortgage or rent on technology, according to a study done by the American Institute of certified public accountant released last year. Ingrid Lundun echoes this fact with information from Forrester's research. It was found that $2.06 trillion was spent on technology software, hardware, and IT services in the year of 2013.

Technology is often associated with distraction. A study was done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that ' in 2012, 3328 people were killed in crashes involving a distracted driver, compared to 3260 in 2011. An additional 421,000 people were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving a distracted driver in 2012, a 9% increase from the 387,000 people injured in 2011.' Recent statistics state that 'Roughly 9 people are killed and more than 1,000 people are injured daily and accidents in which at least one driver was distracted. Nearly 4,000 people are killed in crashes involving distracted drivers in 2015. Distracted driving has reported the cause of death of 3,450 people in 2016.' Distracted driving is deadly and has caused many drivers to fear for their lives every time they get behind the wheel. In 'Location-Aware Lifestyle,' Matthew Honan talks about A horrible accident that almost ended his life because his eyes were on his phone. He states ' I had gained better location awareness but was losing my sense of place.' Then proceeds to state that share with the proper social filters, location awareness needn't be invasive or creepy. But it can be isolating. Even as we gradually digitalize our environment, we should remember to look around the old fashioned way. This comes to show that technology is taking over at a very fast pace we need to remember to slow down and take our time to enjoy life.

But even though there are many negative aspects of technology, there are also many positive ones. Technology has become so advanced over the years that in our can help families stay in touch even if they're miles away from each other. An application such as FaceTime and Skype keeps families in tune with important life events and special occasions even if they cannot be there in person.

Technology has also helped education become more modern and has improved the many teaching styles that exist today. Many institutions and schools are using tablets and chrome books in classrooms to keep students engaged and to make taking notes easier. Students get to play with cool devices while learning all at the same time. Not only does technology help students learn in a new exciting way, it still gives the teacher the power to keep students engaged. Given in this new interest in educational technology, teachers have been able to do more with less. For example, two students can use one tablet and on this one tablet, both students can work on homework which makes for an efficient and exciting school day for the teachers and the students.

Even though technology can be portrayed in a vast amount of ways, both good and bad, but the bad will always outweigh the good. With more people dying each year from distracted driving, cyber bowling climbing to an all-time high, and financial strength plummeting to the ground due to overspending on technology, we're headed towards a future litter with complications that can be prevented by just going outside. Reading a book and having real conversations with one another may not be as bad as we think. With our eyes glued to our phones and our phones in our ears, we miss experiencing the world around us. It is about time for individuals to open their eyes and stop overloading our minds with information and start experiencing reality. If people are trying to change the way we live we need to wake up and set technology aside and live life the way it's meant to be lived. Free of preventable health problems, financial problems, bullying, and much more. It is possible to live a healthy life without technology being the main cause of all the bad in life.