Negative Effects Of Computer Technology On American Society

Albert Einstein once said, “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”. Technology is completely different in today’s society than it was one hundred years ago. People back in the day could not use technology to communicate with other people. Although people use technology today to keep in contact with other people, the sense of privacy has been lost. In Robert Samuels’ article “Breaking Down Borders: How Technology Transforms the Private and Public Realms”, he explains how a lady on a cell phone is a cafe having a conversation is not private at all considering he and many others around her can hear the whole conversation. He sates that, “A woman on a cell phone seems to have no problem sharing her Las Vegas plans with everyone sitting around her” (320). People think that just because they are having a conversation on a cell phone does not mean that

their conversation is private. In this paper, I will be discussing that technology has an impact on American society because it effects the brain and our social skills.
Technology effects our brain in many ways. According to Gary Small’s and GiGi Vorgan’s article “Meet Your iBrain”, they state “technology is not only changing the way we live and communicate but also is rapidly and profoundly altering our brains” (348). One way that technology is influencing our brains is reading. Most people today can not read long stories or articles. In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, he mentions, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now i zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski” (338). By this he means that instead of enjoying long novels and taking his time to read and understand them, he has learned from the internet to skim fast through the articles and not take his time to enjoy them. Carr also explains that reading is not inherited through genes like the color of our hair is, but must be practiced as if playing basketball. If people do not practice skills to make them perfect, then the skill is lost (339). With the internet, people have learned to find things quickly. So when faced with the challenge of having to read a long article for class or pleasure, most people struggle. By being able to find things quickly, it makes people mentally lazy. In Carr’s article he explained, “The Italian Humanist Hieronimo Squariafico worried that the easy availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness, making men “less studious” and waking their minds (344). As you can see, technology effects the brain in a negative way.
Technology can also effect the social skills of a person by making them lose basic communication skills, and wasting a person’s day. According to Small and Vorgan’s article, “as the brain evolves and shifts its focus toward new technological skills, it drifts away from fundamental social skills, such as reading facial expressions during conversation or grasping the emotional context of a subtle gesture” (348). When people constantly have their heas stuck in a cellular device, or stuck in the television, then they do not have the “practice” needed to strengthen their social skills. People that stay on technological devices all the time lose the ability to make eye contact with the people that they are having a conversation with. They also lose the ability to read the body language of the other person. For example, if someone was to come to a job to be interviewed and did not know how to make eye contact, shake hands, or have proper body language, they would more than likely not get the job. In contrary to that, if someone walked into an interview and the interviewer did not make eye contact, shake hands, or have proper body language, then the interviewee would probably feel uncomfortable with working at that specific job. Technology is one of the biggest time wasters for most people. According to Holly Garrett, a Tarleton State University freshman, “Technology is a huge time waster for me, because I am always looking at my phone when i have free time or not and also when i am trying to do homework or read a book. It distracts me very easily.” Most people would rather spend their time being social on the social media sites. For most students, computer technology keeps them from focusing on their homework completely. They are more focused on who is going to text them or who is posting what, that they tend to not do as well on the assignments as they could if they were not distracted by other things such as computer technology. Technology is a negative factor when it comes to a person’s social skills.
In conclusion, computer technology influences American society in many ways.

It effects the brain by effecting our reading skills and shortening our brain’s patience and capacity to read long articles. It also effects the social skills of a person. Computer technology takes away the chance for people to be social because it teaches them how to talk behind the phone and lose common skills like eye contact, hand shakes, and body language. As you can see, there is many ways that computer technology effects American society in a negative way. Computer technology is also a time waster in many people’s life. In my life, computer technology is a hug time waster because it keeps me from focusing on what i should be doing. Although i believe it has not effected my social skills extravagantly it has made me do everything online such as applying for jobs and talking to all of my friends. Without computer technology, we would not be where we are as a society today. Next time you pick up any type of computer technology, I hope you think of the benefits and consequences that you have to

suffer.