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Matt McCurryProfessor CasselEnglish 1201March 28, 2012Effects of Technology in Today’s SocietyIn today’s day and age technology is taking over the world. From smartphones, texting, and social networks, to the touch screen on washers in dryers technology is part of the everyday life cycle now. This leads to one amazing question that seems almost impossible to answer. Is all this technology actually somewhat harmful to us or society, or is it still helping advance living styles in our generation? The effects that too much technology can have on a human mentally, physically, and socially are very important to understand. These effects are why people should limit the use of technology more than they do to stop harming our society. Technology is becoming way to harmful to our world today.I will begin with social impacts. Not very many people know this, but if you do not exercise your social skills you can actually start to lose them. No, you won’t totally lose them to where you would not be able to talk to people, but you will become more and more socially awkward. An example of this would be going into an elevator with someone, they try to strike a conversation with you, can you continue this conversation, or do you run out of things to say on a short elevator ride because you are used to short, slang texting conversation? This is the issue with using technology too much today.The group that is primarily affecting is the younger generation right now, about twelve to twenty-one. The reason of this is because above that, really, this whole technology is quiet new to them. This younger generation is used to this; it is what they have been brought up by. As soon as this generation hit their teenage years they had smartphones. They had texting where they never had to be in person to talk to someone else. So why be on the phone is you can be doing some other activity while texting the other person? This is a huge controversy on whether or not technology is effecting social skills or not, but it is. There are teenagers out there who send close to 25000 texts a month. That is close to one thousand texts a day, almost a text a minute. When kids like this get into a face to face interaction with a stranger it is shown in studies that they have a much harder time continuing a conversation after they run out the typical texting conversation. This would be, “Hey”, “What’s up”, “How are you?” After this they don’t try and get to know the person anymore, they just have an awkward silence between them. Also social networking is a huge topic. Social network sites like Facebook and Twitter can be a huge issue upon today’s society. In 2012 there were roughly nine hundred million Facebook users. This can be a great way to keep in touch with friends from all around the world. This is a huge advancement in society today to be able to do this, also with Skype, but there are also drawbacks to these sites. The first issue is they tend to be able to ruin a lot of relationships. One could go online easily and find tons of stories about how one person or their partner saw something on their Facebook page and they got in a huge fight about it. In many instances these fights could lead to a break up in the relationship. Also if the wrong person adds you or comments on a status of theirs, this also has been known to be able to cause harm in relationships.The next big thing about social networking is, cyber bullying. 70% of students have reported they have been cyber bullied online by Facebook or Twitter. Cyber bullying is defined as demeaning, or threatening acts towards someone else. This doesn’t seem like such a huge deal since 60% said that they just ignored the act of bullying and brushed it off, but a lot of suicide has been committed or attempted because of continuous acts off bulling online and at school. In fact in recent 2011 studies, victims were two to nine times more likely to commit suicide after being bullied (Do Something). The next big issue is what technology does to your body physically. Using too much technology can do a lot to the body if one is not careful when using it. From brain cancer to how the way we sit when using it, the results can be rather serious. Here are some of the rather serious results from using technology too much.The first one is obesity. This is a gigantic issue in the United States these days. The US is the most obese country in the entire world. Now, this cannot all be blamed on the technology, but it does make sense how it does not help the issue. The computers and television have taken the place of going out and doing activities. From just going out and strolling the streets to doing a physical activity, it is all better than sitting on the couch watching TV with a bag of chips. When you are just out and about the likelihood of you walking around is high which is good for your body. This seems to be a rather large problem with the younger kids who have become addicted to watching television instead of going out and playing with friends or playing a sport. Which also leads to cell phones, instead of getting up and going down the street your friend’s house, you can just text them or call them without never having to get off the couch (Nissal).Next, is the possibility of brain cancer being caused by technology. There is a certain type of cancer known as Glioma, which has been proven that an excessive amount of exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields can lead to this type of cancer. This cancer is a tumor that grows in the ear that leads to deafness, and is big enough, serious brain damage. This could in the future become a huge issue if more and more technology begins to give off these waves that affect us.The next way that technology can affect us is the muscle issues. People who spend five to eight hours at a time sitting at the computer without moving can cause serious issues in our body. When you sit at the computer for a long time you tend to, over time, become hunched over with a large curve in the upper spine. This over time can lead to a serious issue of back problems. This is because the body becomes used to being hunched over all day long sitting in front of the computer. This does not seem to be a huge problem until after the age of sixty five, the chances of death increases greatly because the body is compressing more and more on the heart in lungs. So this could, throughout the life time, very slowly but surely affect the body and health of a human being (Doherty).The next thing that the technology can affect on your body, in a pretty substantial way, is your eye sight. Though this does not contribute to eye sight loss, it does cause other side effects just from the effect on the eyes. These affects over time can end up leading to chronic issues that can be rather annoying. The thing that happens to the eyes after sitting in front of the computer for just fifteen minutes is your blinking is reduced up to twenty percent. This can be a rather large prerequisite to other issues. This can lead to dry eyes because of too much exposure to the air after not blinking for a long period of time. When your eyes become dry, this can lead to chronic headaches because your eye sight starts to change and adjust to dry eyes. You should always make sure to take a break and make sure to blink regularly on your time of using the computer or smartphone (Doherty). Even though there are many effects physically on the body from the use of too much technology, there are also mental effects from it also. One huge effect is the constant feel to always need technology by the fingertips. Using technology for a long time gives one a “high” or a rush that they become so called addicted to. The rush someone feels after a lot of technology is a release of Dopamine let out by stimulation of the mind. Researchers say that when someone becomes addicted to the release of Dopamine, when they don’t get his rush they become very bored and need entertainment (Richtel).One other huge effect mentally is that when you do not have technology they have a hard time focusing on anything else. Kids in today’s world are actually starting to get worse grades in school, because when they go to study or do homework they get sidetracked so easily texting someone back or looking repeated times at the same news feed on social media sites (Richtel). Now even though there are a lot of negative effects from the technology, there are also positive ones. Technology allows people to multi task very easily, allowing you to get more done quicker. When people get things done faster they open up more time to spend alone or with friends and family. Technology keeps people just a finger’s length away from everything and everyone in the world, which is a quiet amazing thing to think about comparing it to just twenty years ago. So even though technology can be a very harming thing, it also does some very spectacular things also. The negative effects of the use of technology outweighs the positives, but if people would just limit the use of how much technology they use, which can be hard depending on the situation, then these effects can be less devastating then just using technology whenever they please to do so 106680020574000One of the biggest effective forms of technology is smartphones. They literally do everything one could ask for and more just at the fingertips. People slave over their smartphones for hours on social media sites, browsing the internet, and texting people. Works CitedDoherty, Elissa. "Is Technology Effecting Your Health?" Body and Soul. News Life Media, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. Gentilviso, Chris. "Text Messaging: Is Texting Ruining The Art Of Conversation?" The Huffington Post. , 03 June 2012. Web. 24 Mar. 2013. "Is Technology Harming Our Communication Skills?" The Northern Iowan. N.p., 8 Apr. 2010. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.Nilles, Melissa. "Technology Is Destroying the Quality of Human Interaction." The Bottom Line UCSB. TBL, 24 Jan. 2012. Web. 17 Mar. 2013Nissal, Eric. "Is Technology Ruining Society?" DollarVersity. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013Richtel, Matt. "YOUR BRAIN ON COMPUTERS; Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price." The New York Times. The New York Times, 07 June 2010. Web. 14 Apr. 2013.Zerzan, John. "Is Technology Killing Us?" NY Daily News. N.p., 2012. Web. 17 Mar. 2013."11 Facts About Cyber Bullying." Do Something. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2013. ................
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