Author's Note: I wrote this for a class I took this year as an essay about technology. My argument is whether or not technology is making us smarter. Read on to hear more about the technology issue that is happening in many parts of the world.
Technology advances have had both a positive and negative effect on society. Although technology has made us “smarter” in the fact that we can now find and kill diseases, help sick people of all ages, able to accomplish more, and have made many other technological advances, as individuals, we aren’t becoming smarter. In fact, we aren’t as smart as we used to be. Of course, this is not true for certain people, because certain people are extremely smart, but society as a whole is becoming less smart. We aren’t as smart as we used to be.
The internet makes it hard to think for ourselves. If there is a school question, everyone asks the internet, right? Well, if something is not clear, especially in school, the internet should not be used. When we use the internet, we are just trying to find the quickest way possible to understand something to write down to get a good grade and remember for the short term. However, when the internet is used, we aren’t really thinking about what we are doing, and are easily distracted by ads and other websites. By being distracted, it is harder to recall information, even if it was just viewed. This also makes it difficult to process information, analyze it, and respond to it in a normal way. If that is taken away, people can’t think for themselves.
People rely on the internet to not only remember things for school, but facts in general. Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor of psychology, designed an experiment to determine whether people were more likely to remember information that could be easily retrieved from a computer, just as students are more likely to recall facts they believe will be on a test. Participants in the experiment typed 40 bits of trivia into a computer, half of them believing they would be able to retrieve the information later, and half believing the items typed would be erased. According to the study, The subjects were significantly more likely to remember information if they thought they would not be able to find it later.” If something happened to technology where would we be? There would be no internet to look up what to do. Important personal information would be lost, and people who didn’t back up this information by printing it out will be at a great loss.
With all this technology around, everyone has seemed to forgotten to interact with one another. Instead of talking face to face, or even calling someone, people prefer to text or use social media. This causes social anxiety. Most people would frankly rather stay at home than go out and talk to people they don’t know in a professional way. Bruce Feiler, the author of an article about the Millennials being more socially awkward, said, “Dr. Nass [a professor at Stanford University] told me about research he was doing that suggested young people were spending so much time looking into screens that they were losing the ability to read nonverbal communications and learn other skills necessary for one-on-one interactions. As a dorm supervisor, he connected this development with a host of popular trends among young people, from increased social anxiety to group dating.” If kids don’t learn the communication skills they need, they will have increased social anxiety.
Society as a whole is not smarter than it used to be. We have lost some of our smarts, memory, and communication skills. Even though technology has allowed for great science and medical advances, it has hurt society. The only way to improve society is to put down the phones, stop looking at that screen, talk to people around us, and live life.
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