Unexpected Price Tag on Technology

The use of technology has propelled our modern day lives into being productive, efficient, and convenient. Society holds in high regards our ability to simultaneously send a text, watch a video, and use the restroom. It has become the goal of our existence to share the most tweets, and have the latest apple product. The advancements in technology are what make these wonders possible. Even so, all good things must come at a price. The down payment one places on an iPhone is nothing in comparison to the amount users will eventually pay if they continue their constant plugged in state. Recent studies have shown that while our smartphones may be smart study helps, they are in most cases not raising our IQ points, but in fact doing the contrary, all the while having detrimental effects on our overall health (j). Constantly using technology such as smartphones, iPads, and laptops can cause severe damage to users’ physical, mental, and emotional health creating damage to the very thing that makes us human, the ability to connect.

In Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” He discusses the idea that while the ability to google things has made new information easier to obtain, it has caused us to spread our mental facilities thinner, thus making it harder for us to retain even basic information. He points out many cases that show the possibility of technology physically changing the way our brains function and affecting our overall health. Carr believes the brain emulates the most advanced technology of the time period, and that it adapts to act in the way of the latest gadget; in the case of modern times, something similar to a computer (k).

Many teachers believe that while internet and digital tools have positive effects on stude...

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... Carr wrote, “Media [is] not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.” (k). We have weakened our ability to think deep and caused ourselves to become dependent on inventions that will always need to be updated and upgraded.

Technology has become such a predominate part of the way the world functions. Society is so caught up in the advancements and possibilities that they do not realize there could be or are downsides to excessive amounts in our everyday lives until the effects were already irreversible. We have allowed ourselves to become intellectually lazy only because we think it is more efficient (k). Users sacrifice their physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing in order to be consistently connected to technology that is ultimately damaging the ability to connect on a real life basis.