We live in a world driven by technology
We live in a world in which technology is used for almost everything. It's become embedded in our everyday routine. All nowadays, from education to industry to sports to academia, is technologically based. Technology advances at a rapid pace, making things more impressive. The question of whether technology has improved or harmed life has sparked discussion. As a result, the thesis's foundation is an examination of the media's advantages and disadvantages in order to decide if it is a yes or no. According to an ICMPA survey, most of the college students cannot go a day without accessing the media to understand the basis of this argument; it is essential to analyze the crucial facts about technology. For instance, over 90% of adults have their mobile phones within arm's reach at all times. Nowadays, everything is done to us by technology, from works and studies (Dave 67). It is, therefore, safe to assume that technology is essential in our lives. For that reason, we are going to look into detail the advantages of technology.
The advantages of technology
To begin with, Google has made life pretty more comfortable for most of us because our answers are only a click of a button away. According to Google's Earth by William Gibson, people want Google to tell them what (Bagdikian 18) is. Next, this has made research pretty simple and also reduced the burden of carrying things. Loads of books can be accessed on the internet, and it is therefore not necessary to carry heavy books around. This has made academic life easy and has also reduced health risks like backaches among students who used to carry heavy things around.
Technology has also improved business opportunities, and it has created massive job opportunities. For instance, online marketing is now the in the thing, and everyone is doing it. It has made shopping very easy because I don't have to go to the market, I just order and it is delivered. Regarding job opportunities, we have many online entrepreneurs. This has become a good source of income for people, and it has therefore improved lives. Technology has improved the transport and communication industry. The world has become a global village as most people say (Tetlock 704). I can easily communicate with people in different parts of the world. Transport has also become more comfortable with the improvement of the transport networks like air transport and cable transport. Technology has given room for modern-day innovations. People, especially young minds, have been given a place to explore their talents and come up with new ideas. The list of great things that technology has done is endless. In the text, a day without media, we see the author manages to learn news about his hometown without necessarily being there. Though it is from distraction, especially since people have become addicted to it, technology has improved the lives of many. Another advantage comes in the military ammunition and the medical fields (Dave 67). Doctors have been able to save thousands of lives because technology has made it easier to detect diseases early. Prevention is better than cure, right? Therefore, the detection of a disease in its early stages through scanning makes it easier for the treatment to be administered faster and easier, thus preventing the death of the said casualty.
The disadvantages of technology
Onto the disadvantages of technology, we begin with the text provided. The author says he cannot go six minutes without looking at his phone. Media has become a severe form of distraction, and this has reduced people's concentration span. People tend to find it fascinating to text even when a lecture is going on. This has further led to media dependency and addiction. People rely on the internet to do everything for them. Also, going for a day without accessing any form of technology makes one feel sick. Before the technological inventions, people had a social life. People would associate with each other through talking. Nowadays, with the coming of social media, people have a lot of online friends than those they have in real life. This has dramatically increased crimes known as cyberbullying. Also, someone can easily access your personal information because of hacking (Bagdikian 25). This is called data expulsion. Stalkers can access people's information, and they have been known to track down their victims and cause harm to them. The lack of artificial intelligence has also increased over time because people have forgotten how to think for themselves. They rely on technology to do their thinking for them. If given assignments instead of sitting down and thinking, people just type in the question on Google and all the answers will come to them. This has greatly encouraged laziness (Tetlock 706). Laziness also comes about in terms of doing chores. Today we have machines that do everything for us; it is therefore not necessary to tire yourself out doing the dishes or laundry. This has led to the occurrence of lifestyle diseases and premature aging due to a lack of exercise.
Conclusion
It is, therefore, safe to conclude that technology is both good and bad in our lives. Critical analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of technology should be carried out, and people should be educated on them. Technology is very productive if used correctly, but it can also be very disastrous if people are not careful with it. Technology has also led to moral degradation in the society today because many people have access to explicit and violent materials at a very young age. This is very dangerous because young children practice what they see on television, which ends up with them causing harm to each other. It is not fair to dwell on the disadvantages of something without really looking into the benefits it has brought about. The use of technology is costly. For starters, the prices of these devices are overwhelmingly high; people end up spending a lot of money on these devices. Using them also incurs an extra cost. As much as it is advantageous to the people earning from the charges, the money used to buy airtime and internet bundles could have been put to better use. With all the pros and cons in mind, it is therefore up to an individual to decide what he will use technology for, good or bad. As the writer of the text also decided to use this technology to learn about his country, even though most of the time the same device posed as a distraction.
Work Cited
Evans, Dave. Social media marketing: An hour a day. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
Tetlock, Paul C. “The role of media in finance.” Handbook of Media Economics. Vol. 1. North-Holland, 2015. 701-721.
Bagdikian, Ben H. The new media monopoly: A completely revised and updated edition with seven new chapters. Beacon Press, 2014.
