The Negative Influence of Technology on Today’s Kids

Kids that are now in their 20s, during their childhood, were most likely playing outside with their friends, doing sports, and running around. Kids would come back home covered in dirt and extremely tired. As these kids kept getting older, they started to see the impact of technology on their childhood, with the popularization of video games, for example. Suddenly, kids weren't playing outside anymore but were tucked in someone's house sitting by a television screen.

Today, many six-year-old kids dominate every trick of a tablet, while someone from an older generation would struggle with using a computer.

There are plenty of advantages to the world because of technology, but it is also changing us. Technology is now present in everything: politics, religion, education, relationships, work, and others. People have always loved technology, since the first car, telephone, radio, or television appeared to the public. People embraced those into their lives, and they are all present until today, only more improved.

Technology does help a lot. We live in a globalized world in which people are easily connected through technology. Many businesses use social media and, thanks to the increased use of technology, they can reach many more people than before, although some people do some businesses with face-to-face interaction with their clients. As time went by and technology improved, many factories started to adopt cutting-edge machines that do the same job of a human worker, only faster and cheaper. As Rosen (2015) said: "Because the thing is, although jobs have continued to proliferate in the long run, these predictions weren't exactly wrong in the short run: Machines do replace humans. In fact, replacing humans is often entirely the point." Thus, as a consequence of this mass production of machines, the unemployment percentage went up. On the other hand, technology has also created multiple other fields of study, so people now have more options to choose for a major. For example: computer engineering, forensics, network, and science and technology in society. It creates more job opportunities.

The access to the internet is extremely easy. People now have access to multiple data and can learn with all the information provided by technology. Some people do use this type of access to hack someone or even a big company, which could, for example, destroy someone's business depending upon the gravity of the data collected or information leaked. Connolly and Gardiner (2015) tell about a hacker that attacked and destroyed a man's business: "The hacker had managed to bypass the company's entire security protocol, get behind its firewall, and gain access to its master user access information."

Education has now been improved, as technology was brought into most classrooms. Online resources are always extremely helpful and of fast access for students. The fact that someone doesn't need to buy a magazine to read an article, for example, is amazing. People don't need to go to the library to find information anymore. Teachers can now show students new ways of learning, for example having interactive classroom activities, showing videos with actual data, and making PowerPoint slides. Unfortunately, not all students use technology to their advantage. Cell phones can bring many distractions for students during a lecture because many people today feel like they need to answer a text message immediately, or they need to check their most recent post on Facebook and how many "likes" they have gotten. Also, technology has opened many doors for cheating. Miners (2009) says, "More than one third of teens with cellphones admit to having stored information on them to look at during a test or texting friends about answers." Sadly, many students use copying/plagiarism or look up answers for a test on the internet instead of actually trying to learn the subject.

Additionally, a big reason why technology is great is because of medicine. Life expectancy is linked to improvements in medicine and hygiene. Disease or infection spreading became more difficult. Many new surgical procedures allow a patient to feel less pain or to even have his or her life saved. For example, because of technology, a physicist discovered X-Rays. They are a great healthcare improvement, designed to see deep inside the body without surgery. "This changed the way doctors diagnosed and treated disease. X-ray machines became powerful medical tools... especially during the First World War." ("Technology and Medicine," n.d.) Many cures were found, and labs now can make medicines that are effective and specific to different people in order to decrease harm to the human body. On the other hand, illegal drug production has been intensified because of technological improvements. Illegal drug laboratories now have better tools for a bigger production of illegal substances.

A problem that has become more present in today's society is technology distraction. Every year, the number of car crashes caused by texting and driving increases. According to Gorzelany (2013), texting and talking on cellphones caused "12 percent of all fatalities caused by unfocused motorists." Which means that, in a year, more than seven thousand car accidents were caused by people texting and driving. Besides that, many people fall on the streets because of texting. It is common to see people almost bumping into each other or walking into something, and that could be dangerous. An article published by Fox News talks about Joshua Burwell, a man who fell to his death in a site in San Diego because of distraction. "Burwell had trouble finding parking at the site and had gotten out of his vehicle to search for a spot when he tumbled over the edge in front of horrified witnesses." ("Distracted man who fell to his death," 2015) The same article reported a statement by Bill Bender, a San Diego Lifeguard, who told NBC San Diego, "(He) wasn't watching where he was walking, he was looking down at the device in his hands." It doesn't seem like something to worry about, but how easily would someone cross a street without looking to the sides? It's more dangerous than most people think.

Another recent problem that technology has brought is cyberbullying. Many anonymous apps on people's phones allow people to post what they are feeling, but the app is not always used for the right purpose. Many people hide behind their phones to oppress someone, and this type of bullying has become more present in today's society since everyone uses technology. And now, because of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others, the practice of cyberbullying has become even more prevalent. According to the American Osteopathic Association, "negative effects of bullying often go unnoticed, as many victims feel the need to conceal the fact that they are being bullied because they are embarrassed or afraid of further bullying." Jennifer Caudle, a certified physician from the Association, said, "Kids that are bullied are likely to experience anxiety, depression, loneliness, unhappiness, and poor sleep." ("Cyber-Bullying and its Effect on our Youth," 2016)

One of the most notable changes that technology brought into our world is how we think. Technology has changed the way humans think, act, and behave. A child today does not see the world as a child five years ago did, or a child ten years ago did, and so on. For most people, technology is part of their everyday lives, and your routine starts to depend on it. For example, in the story "R We D8ting?" by Sandra Barron (2005), a girl met a guy in a bar and started talking to him through text messages, and met him twice, and she could not stop using her phone. As many others miss their phones in situations, such as plane flights, "I'd miss having cellphone service, and my mind had indeed wandered at times to our airport conversation." (Kress & Winkle, 2008, p.220) Today, people struggle going places where there is no phone service, such as flying by plane. If the girl in the story was born in the '70s, for example, she would not have missed her phone working because people had no cellphones.

The fact that technology brings people together is great. It allows communication to be as easy as it could possibly be. If I go abroad for a long period of time, I have no problems communicating with my family and friends because today everyone has Skype, Facebook, FaceTime, and others. But to what extent does technology help people communicate?

Lots of people hide themselves behind their phones. The only time those people get to be themselves is behind a screen, posting something on a social network and receiving "likes." A few years ago, things were different socially speaking. People couldn't break up with their girlfriend or boyfriend through text messages, couldn't get into arguments with people being far from them because a face-to-face conversation was needed. People are losing this type of interaction. For example, it is common now for parents to get bad news from their kids through their phones. People might be slowly losing their ability to communicate with others.

The idea that the whole world is going to change into a technological world, in which machines control humans, may be too extreme, but people are gradually starting to lose their ability to communicate with others outside of a text message as well. Many believe that in the future everyone will be deprived of their ability to communicate because of technology dependence, but the world won't allow people not being able to speak properly. People will still need to make a doctor's appointment, to contact a lawyer, to discuss a project, and to fight for their beliefs. The world has and will keep changing drastically, but humans won't be humans if they are not able to communicate.

Technology is now extremely important for today's society, although it can cause accidents, allow cheating in general, and invade people's privacy. Technology's pros win. It has allowed people to learn much more, to save lives, and educate people. Technology has even increased the life expectancy of humans. Hoskins (2009) said, "There was an increase in life expectancy for the U.S. population since the start of the 20th century." Life expectancy has increased by thirty-one years. "The discovery and use of penicillin to cure life-threatening infections, the development of a polio vaccine, and the first successful organ transplant all lent themselves to a drastic improvement in life expectancy throughout the 20th century" (Hoskins, 2009). Those are medical examples to show how technology allows humans to develop. For that and many other matters that help us in our everyday lives, technology does have a great impact on our society.

Works Cited

1. Connolly, B., Gardiner, B. (2015). "Case Study: When a hacker destroys your business." CIO. Retrieved from http://cio.com.au/article/569410/case-study-when-hacker-destroys-your-business/
2. Gorzelany, J. (2013). "Forget Phones Or Fast Food, More Drivers Cause Their Own Distractions In Crashes." Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2013/04/03/forget-phones-or-fast-food-more-drivers-cause-their-own-distractions-in-crashes/#3c11b94d15b6
3. Hoskins, D. (2009). "The impact of technology on health delivery and access." Workers World. Retrieved from http://www.workers.org/2009/us/sickness_1231/
4. Kress, A., Winkle, S. (2005). "R We D8ting?" NextText: Making Connections Across and Beyond the Disciplines. 219-223.
5. Miners, Z. (2009). "One Third of Teens Use Cellphones to Cheat in School." US News. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/on-education/2009/06/23/one-third-of-teens-use-cellphones-to-cheat-in-school
6. N.a. (n.d.). "Technology and Medicine." Science Museum. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/themes/technologies

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