Technology: Higher Education

Technology Taking Over The person of the 21st century has the luxury of being dependent on technology, allowing for certain weaknesses to sprout out of individuals due to their lack of natural abilities. Technology is the making, modification, use, and knowledge of tools, machines, or techniques, in order to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal, or perform a specific function. It’s true; technology has made life more efficient and reliable. Many great inventions have been possible through technology.

Technology is also one of the causes of people becoming lazier, uninspired, and less creative. Technology is not bad in and of itself, but people are misusing it. Planes, trains, and automobiles carry people from place to place at high speeds. Telephones, television and computer networks help people communicate with others across the world. Medical technologies from vaccines to Stem Cell therapy, allow people to live longer, healthier lives. Although most people think technology made life easier, it’s actually making them overly dependent on those technologies.

Today’s generation is becoming much lazier because they are too dependent on the latest gadgets. Some of them are unable to do things on their own. Nowadays, people use computers in business, public services, education, and most of all, in entertainment. There are many advantages to this situation. Firstly, computer controlled cars, planes or ships all people to travel safely and reduce travel time. However, a disadvantage to this is that all of these affect our environment in some way or another which eventually ends up harming ourselves.

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Faster travel times have led to easier dispersal of airborne viruses and diseases between locales, as well as increases in jet lag. Jumping from time zone to time zone can have a detrimental effect on the body. Most powerful countries depend on their industrial power to stabilize their status. Technology made industrial development increase rapidly. Industries depend more on machines than human power. This newly discovered robotic technology makes human workers obsolete in some factories. Robots have been built to do tasks equally the same or better as humans, leaving them jobless.

Robotics are a blessing and a curse to a company. While it’s nice to have a machine do everything, it can lead to issues down the road as customers notice the quality may not be the same as the quality they experienced from human hands. Another major con to robotics is that companies still need employees to manage the machines. When a problem happens, the machine will continue to run instead of stopping and “thinking” of what needs to be done in order to fix the problem. This is why companies still need to have skilled and qualified employees to run the machines before they cause them to lose millions of dollars.

Also, today’s society is based upon quick sound bites and short attention ps. The world is at our fingertips, yet paradoxically, the more we connect, the more we actually disconnect. The internet has taken over, dominating our lives. The internet is an easy access for information from around the world that can be attained within seconds. There are many interactive applications on the internet that can bring distant people closer together without having to commute. Also, shopping has become more convenient. The disadvantage of the internet is that it has become too reliable for most people.

People can get “hooked” on the internet. Some people may take advantage of all these things and scam others for their money, as it is that simple to create a legit seeming website. Despite it’s ease, technology has caused people to become so reliant that, in a poll by CNET, 28 percent of people said they wouldn’t be able to live without high-speed internet. Many people don’t know how to look up information in libraries or encyclopedias. Though technology has allowed us to improve and modify traditional tasks, it has also clouded our realization of the dependency we have on it.

America’s education level has become an average ranking. Education has developed into a network of many avenues that now allows the average American to obtain education easier. Higher education has branched out from the traditional university into online degrees, trade schools, and junior colleges. Obtaining a high school education has also advanced : high school students can take AP courses and high school dropouts can get a GED. With all these opportunities, why is it that America ranked as average in the international education ratings?

The number of options available has caused our country to have no ambition to excel. Other countries have less options and freedoms which may be the motivation that allows them to achieve higher education rankings than the U. S. Many people are pointing to technology as a cause of childhood obesity. The younger generation has lost it’s curious nature to explore the world. Instead, children are hiding behind a TV screen or video game. For adults, the accused culprits are different yet the same, for example people spending more time driving and less time walking or biking to reach their destinations.

Technology doesn’t just keep people in their chairs, it changes the way people eat. Obesity in children has increased by thirty percent in the past thirty years in America according to the Center for Disease Control and prevention. Obesity leads to many health problems including, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, respiratory problem, and cardio-vascular disease. The public is carried in street cars; elevators take the place of stairs in our larger buildings, and the necessary activity of the energetic is not directed in the use of muscles needed in running and walking.

It is becoming noticeable that people are slowly losing those abilities and letting machines or computers do the work for them. People are no longer required to think. If posed with a difficult or even simple problem people will simply "Google" it on an iPhone and the answer is found within seconds. Students are also becoming too dependent on calculators. Instead of using a graphing calculator to solve complex mathematical formulas, students turn to calculators for even simple calculations.

Though calculators are important in an evolving world, it is still important for teachers to teach students how to do mental math and reasoning (Metz). Scholars, particularly teen scholars, are no longer required to spell correctly. Words like tomorrow, tonight, and before, become 2morrow, 2night and b4 in playful texting conversation. Spell check is also contributing to the downfall of spelling. Too often, people type a word sloppily into a web document and let spell check do the work without even noticing the word was misspelled.

We are living in a society which is called “technologically civilized”. Every small work we do is technology dependent. Today every other person is recognized with the device or gadget, he or she carries. Ultimately we can say that, “living without technology is like living without air”, in this technical world of today. In conclusion, we can use technology but with moderation. If we use it, firstly we should have to check if we can do that action without it. If we are ever in a situation where technology is not present, we will find it difficult to resolve the situation.

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