The Negative Aspects that Technology has Brought Us

Technology and new inventions is something in our lives that is great to us because of the benefits it comes with. It makes our lives easier on a day to day basis because of it’s quick and easy sources. There is always that new technology item out on the market that everyone needs to have. Some people in this world want to create their own technologies and be just as famous as someone like Steve Jobs one day. There are many people who believe they can do this which excites them greatly.

What these people may not realize is the negative effects it can come with. This is something that Victor Frankenstein experienced in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

A lot of people nowadays are beginning to take on the qualities of Victor Frankenstein and are beginning try and achieve fame by creating something they think they have the capability of doing. This can have consequences because the technology item that is being made may harm others. This is because something like an iphone can make people become addicted and it can harm them. This will make the person who created the creation look bad and it will look like it is all their fault. This is the case in the article “Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones” by Nicholas Thompson.

This is because the article talks about how the recent technologies such as phones and how they are controlling to the human mind and causing people to be attached to their phones. The article “The Machine Stops” by Oliver Sacks talks about how many people are worried about what our world is turning into with all of these new inventions now a days and they are worried about how our world will end up with these things potentially taking over our world.

Lastly, the article “Bill Gates and Steve Jobs raised their kids tech-free — and it should’ve been a red flag” by Chris Weller talks about how famous people in the world of technologies had the idea to raise their kids with little to no screen time and they explain why. These 3 articles along with the novel all show examples of why technology could be dangerous and what it could be doing to our world. Some people get so wrapped up in an idea about something that could change their lives forever by bringing them fame that they don’t even think about the negative consequences that it could bring them.

In the article “Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones” by Nicholas Thompson, the main idea is that there are many people that are completely attached to their phones which is causing people to becomes isolated from the actual world around them. The article is an interview and a person is being interviewed. The person that is being interviewed wants to save the human minds from being damaged by all this technology. The author of the article is asking questions to the person and is questioning them on whether or not smartphones are a good thing or a bad thing. The guy getting interviewed, Tristan Harris suggests that smartphones are a good thing that comes with a lot of benefits in our lives, but that’s only if people are using it for the right reasons. He thinks that the phones themselves are great inventions, but the apps and all the fancy stuff that develops into the phones are what is damaging people’s minds.

He also thinks its bad that people think more about technologies than other things that should be more important in people’s lives. “It’s possibly the largest source of influence over 2 billion people’s thoughts that has ever been created. Religions and governments don’t have that much influence over people’s daily thoughts.” (Thompson). This shows that people think about technologies too much and it could take over people’s lives. This ties into an idea in the novel Frankenstein By Mary Shelley because a similar thing happens in the book as well. In the novel, Victor Frankenstein want to create this creation that will bring him fame.

Because of this he stays up all day and all night for a long period of time and takes no breaks creating this creature. He is 100% sure that this creature is going to work out for him and that he is going to get so lucky with his creation. He shuts himself out from the rest of the world because he is so excited to get the creation done. He can’t wait to show everybody. It took over his life for a period of time. “But my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me able to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time.” (Shelley 49). This quote from the novel shows that Victor was so focused on the creation that he didn’t pay attention to the more important things in his life that he later ended up losing. This all shows that technology could cause someone to forget about their values and only focus on that.

The article “The Machine Stops” by Oliver Sack shows how the times have dramatically changed with the world of technologies. The author talks about how life was so different when he was a child and how he got to experience things in such different ways that would be impossible for a child to experience now. Back in the day, none of the newest inventions that nobody would be able to live without today even existed. Nobody knew that they existed. There wasn’t an option to send test messages and their wasn’t an option to facetime your friend. The author talks about how it’s obviously much more convenient now, but how it might be nice if we were able to experience that today as well.

He also mentions that everything you do now is out there for everyone to see and it is extremely easy for rumors to get around due to the technologies. “There is no privacy and apparently no desire for it in a world devoted to non-stop use of social media” (Sack). This shows that people’s privacy can easily be leaked just with one click. For example, if you send something to just one person, that person could save whatever it was that you sent them and they could send it to ten more people without you even know who each could send it to ten more people. This wasn’t possible back in the day. It was hard to get someone’s private information out there for everyone to see.

Now it’s not hard at all. This relates to Frankenstein because what Victor did got out into the public very quickly because nobody ever heard of what he was planning on doing before and everyone got so excited about it. Victor told everyone that he was planning something big and everyone was completely ready for it. That didn’t quite happen though, Victor finished creating the creation finally and brought it to life. The creature was extremely scary looking and scared Victor to death. Victor ran away from the creature and made it so that is was isolated from the rest of the world.

This caused Victor to not want anything to do with the creature. Everyone was confused because they thought Victor was going to come out with some new invention that was going to be amazing. But instead, it was just some creation that nobody wanted anything todo with. “These luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.” (Shelley 51). This shows that the creation ended up being a disaster rather than Victor’s big break. Since the idea was something that nobody ever heard of in his time, everyone was confused when nothing happened. This made Victor look like a failure. These ideas show that technology causes things to be spread easily and faster and also could invade a person’s privacy.

The article “Bill Gates and Steve Jobs raised their kids tech-free — and it should’ve been a red flag” by Chris Weller talks about how big technology people limited their kids from using technologies. This Is very surprising because you would normally think that people like Steve Jobs and Bill gates would be a very big influence on technologies to their children. But it’s actually the opposite. There are many people like Jobs and Gates who don’t let their children have ay screen time and wait until their children are very old until they are aloud to have phones. “Gates the former CEO of Microsoft, implemented a cap on screen time when his daughter started developing an unhealthy attachment to a video game.

He also didn’t let his kids get cell phones until they were 14” (Weller). This may be a good style of parenting in some ways because the children won’t become attached to screens and they won’t constantly be thinking of it. Some people may disagree though, because it could just make kids become attached once they are experienced to technology for the first time. That would not be good because the children would go from having no experience, to being exposed to something very vast that could potentially cause them to have their minds taken over by it.

That’s why prohibiting children from electronics completely can be a red flag. This could also relate to Frankenstein because Victor didn’t really know a lot about how technologies and sciences worked. When he learned about it a little bit, he became obsessed and wanted to do it himself. This was obviously an issue because he was exposed to something he has never seen before and was completely obsessed with it which took over his life for a period of time. Once he created the creation, it obviously was not what he had expected and so Victor avoided the creature.

The creature got extremely angry at Victor and so he began making Victor’s life miserable by taking people’s lives away that were important to Victor. Since the creature literally had nobody, he asked Victor to create another creature that could keep him busy since he knew Victor had the capability of doing so. He told Victor that if he created his companion, he would leave Victor alone forever and stop killing people that were important to Victor. Victor agreed to d this because he realized he would have nothing to do with the creature anymore.

But once he thought about it, he changed his mind and completely destroyed his creation in the making. “Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world! Begone! I have answered you; you may torture me, but I will never consent.” (Shelley 129). This quote shows that Victor wanted nothing to do with the creations companion and refused to help him. Some people say that his all Victor’s fault though because he became obsessed with technology in the first place which caused him to rush to create this creation which caused misery for him.

Victor didn’t quite think about the negative things that could possibly happen to him with creating the creation. The ideas of how recent technologies tie into being attached to new inventions, how the world has changed because of the new technology, people’s private information being spread, and how not being exposed to technologies and than finally being exposed to it causing an obsession ties the 3 articles and the novel together.

Victor was obsessed with making his creation at first which caused him to be attached to his creation. Things being easily spread relates because Victor told everyone that the creation was going to be an amazing invention that everyone would love but it ended up being a disaster which mad eVictor look bad. And Lastly, Victor was exposed to how to create something that he created which caused him to become obsessed later turning into a nightmare for him. In conclusion, the ideas of technology that look like they could be amazing to people’s lives could bring a lot of negativity and could change their lives in a good or bad way.

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