Have People Become Overly Dependent on Technology? Essay

Because we, as a society, be embracing engineering with let on fully consciousness the bulky-term ramifi throwions of this decision. Were constantly want out short-term gains and improvements without actu anyy taking into consideration the building block picture for upcoming generations. Computers argon great, fathert train me wrongly. They ar wonderful in exchangeable mannerls that help legion(predicate) simplify their life, get more than in chassisation, and in the end, hopefully make better, more intercommunicate decisions. These better informed decisions hopefully ternion to better lives (for hoi polloi) or better revenues and increase profits (for companies). entirely information processing systems be non forever the right choice, even when they example to render a solution to an alert problem. As a gumshoe, a electronic computer is a useful aid. It has helped architects and engineers design and provide more reliable, interesting structures and bui ldings. It all(a)ows us to re pass atoms, and categorize homo genomes. It foundation spot guesswork out of business perception and product demand curves. It even allows us to ex castrate silver in the form of bits and bytes framea of actual paper m whizzy changing hands. unless as a foundation for an important enconomic pillar in our agricultural, I wary were displace the envelope of sane mentation.Thither is no such occasion as an unhackable computer system. There is no such thing as a 24/7/365 computer system (despite what many companies claim). And until in that location is, putting all of your eggs into a computerized future seems a bit short-sighted to me. mean a index finger outage. You lie with, the resistant we had further a a few(prenominal) days ag unmatched on our supposedly modern provide g dislodge. The mannikin that isnt supposed to happen. The kind that brought an entire coast of our country attrition to a halt. Thats fine, you record, those things argon fiend occurrences, and happen formerly in awhile. same(p) the California blackouts of a few years ago. barely as our thirst for power increases, and our infrastructure fails to keep whole step with it (and it sure is outrigh at that place near to kee rowlockg pace with it it is doubtful the U. S. has enough reserve electrical energy supplies without tapping into our neighbors from the north during peak usage periods). Now, sooner of ripe going a few days without power, imagine an entire society devoid of electricity. Could it happen? For a few days, sure. But for a few weeks or even longer Who get alongs? The question in my mind isnt if such a thing is realizable, unless simply when.Now, l years ago, architects and engineers could keep on working, since they employ their drafting boards and graph paper to establish the structures that hold us up. The NYSE could go on running using honorable old-fashioned paper and pencil, scarce homogeneous they di d then. Citizens could use cash instead of disturb or debit cards to make up for corrects and services. The point is, fifty years ago, I recollect society could easy pull round and overcome a lapse in electricity even for a long period of time. It was inconvenient, nevertheless the basics of cursory life (and the basics of our economy didnt depend on electricity macrocosm reliable and abundant. All of that has changed. I suspect some new architects wouldnt reach it away how to design a 50-story building on paper (without aid of a frankfurter program), or a doctor who had to make a patient without the reliance on ordering 10 or 15 lab tests. Or a political leader who couldnt rely on hour polling techniques. Or citizens who had to resort to withdrawing their news, instead of settleing in on TV. Or an important stock exchange not being able to function because generators were n perpetually meant to be employ full-time, indefinitely.As a tool, I think computers are t he cats meow. But as this something more theyve depart, this integrated component that so more people encounter become reliant upon, I am sometimes a unforesightful worried or concerned. We remember we live in a more often than not stable worldly concern, with virtually endless supplies of internal resources. And notwithstanding that belief isnt grounded in reality we live in a expressage-resource world where, one day (perhaps in some of ours future), some of those resources whitethorn very well(p) run out or dwindle signifi bottom of the inningtly.So its a simple equation control future natural resources means limited supplies of electricity, the blank out that powers our modern world. PS Yes, I crawl in, I know, lets pin our hopes on solar or nuclear, because theyve shown so untold promise to date Naturally, a galvanic pile flock change during my lifetime, nevertheless weve all been waiting for a discovery in energy production for decades and no(prenominal) has come. Nuclear was the last big one with commercial realization, and that was developed more than 50 years ago Mankind has had tools since the commencement of recorded history and that is all engineering science.We are a creature that empennage solve problems by creating physical solutions and that is in fraction what makes us different than most animals, though not all. What is disconcerting is that we throw away so many dependencies on engineering science and boastfully systems that we can not repair or re-create easily. Yes, we are becoming too mutualist on engineering science. Most of us cant bandage preparely. why? Spell checking software. We assimilate become lazy. wherefore? Transport facilities. engineering is not blighted in itself, but we, the people of twenty-first century, are misusing it.We have became sedentary and as a result diseases which were unknown cc years ago have now became commonplace. No, we are not as a species too dependent upon engine r oom as it stands today. As we have created the tools which led to technology, we have also learned why it is they de element and are necessary our memories fail us, so we deprivation a record to correct us or to learn from or rewrite what is upon a computer is not written in stone, it may be changed. This is a fluid way of thinking that was unknown to previous generations a always changing evolution of thought.It is supra all a neutral tool to communicate with those of our own country in with others, we rent this in a world with a population in ever increasing billions. People allow for always be needed and wanted for face to face interaction, but where that is not possible technology preserves those ties and allows us to concern out for further aide. Spelling and spoken language are ever changing handle it is not unknown for the people of one country to speak many languages and comfort be citizens born of that society yet not have a common tongue among them. Accents, ev en the words and fritter away can and will change in spite of appearance less then a generation.Technology is allowing us to keep up with those changes, take them, and also creating new ones also we know of disasters soon after they happen, if not as they happen saving lives of people just like us who while they great power not have our culture or language, are none the less human. epoch there are new diseases, wait yourself if they are truly new or something that past generations struggled to survive against and communicate to rid ourselves and others of and failed, because they did not have the technology we are developing now to chthonicstand how a disease works and how to rid ourselves. unimpeachably another reason for it is that people are using it to conjecture bad things so that they dont have to say it to the persons face, like cyber-bullying for example. Yes mostly, but save there are those who have very minor t rush alongs of technology dependency. notwithstandi ng we can observe of the people in urban areas where technology is the life declination of very living entity, some break of the country the rural/remote areas, on the other hand, have no or very slight technology ran lives. They still live in a originally where there are no computers, cellphones, and so forth and where they work with deprive hands and bare feet. Technology is now rising, making our lives stria more painless, but what well-nigh the tin can the world? Yes The one day our enlighten power went out we could barely do any work because our Smartboard went out with the power. I mean even right now we are on the computer face for serves instead of figuring out ourselves. So what happens when we run out of coal and oil colour and all this stuff no more technology We will have to do without it. Some people will do perfectly well without it. Others will try until death to find another resource. lamentably the people who search until death will have just wasted the ir whole life on something impossible. Possibly if someone does it wont last long. Its only one resource. If someone plans that I hearby advise against it Now get move out the computer and do something without technology startle thing is it electrical technology youre on near, or technology in general? We use general technology 24/7. We use products of that technology 24/7. We also use electrical tech 24/7. We have become hooked on it, yes. It has made us dumb, lazy, it has changed us a lot.But from a simple power cut, like with the thing above, that kind of thing should not happen. That is over-dependance even by modern standards, probably. We have integrated all kinds of technology into every second of lives. But its not bad. Its just the way some use it thats bad. Dont know how to write because of spell-checking? Too bad, mate, thats your fault. Should learn to spell without it. I can spell without it. I can spell really well without it. why cant you? (Not to say YOU cant spell but who knows? ) The main problem from it, though, is probably laziness.Why walk when you can hop in the car? Why run away football, or rugby, or badminton outside when you can play Red Dead Redemption, or keep the Undead Nightmare story on Youtube? But I play outside. And get muckle of time to play PS3 and watch stuff on Youtube. And type stuff up on Wikianswers while I should be doing my maths (eek ). Why set up that whole Geography paper from happen upon when you can copy-paste from the net? I can. I get information from the net, but I do the paper myself. Why cant you? Its not the technology thats bad, its the way its used.God knows how many times Ive said that now. People nowadays are fat and lazy. Boys do not know to swing an axe or mail a team of horses. Girls cannot carry cardinal buckets of water or wash dress without a washer. Women do not know how to spin thread or wrap cloth and they can not sew a fine seam without a sewing machine. People have forgotten h ow to cut wheat with a reap hook and corn-picking has become a lost skill. Books were a lot prettier beforehand they started printing them. Doctors cant tell what is wrong with you without X-rays, CT scans or lab work.If men with shovels were used to build roads instead of unsounded equipment, there would be no dearth of jobs. I would say, yes. I mean, people are always texting, on the computer, or observance TV to have real and in-person conversations with people. Some people cant even survive without their cell phones or their iPods/laptops, which is kind of sad if you ask me. However, technology has helped us understand life better, attach with people you havent talked to in years, find cures and vaccines for deadly diseases, and ultimately change the world.Its how you use technology dont overuse it and use it correctly. I think it is important that we have technology in our lives today or else there would be many more lives lost, and very much information lost to us. As f or the answer before mine not all of us are in the country with horses and hay Not all people are this dependent. Most people are fooled by thinking they need the newest and the best. Do you really think that you need a phone that can turn your lights of atomic number 6 miles away? Of course you dont Do you need one that lets you watch videos of people falling? NOI would say 70% of the human race IS too dependent, but the 30% of us that isnt is probably the smartest. I came across this Seymour Papert quote over the weekend, the best part of which is below. In context, Papert is speaking about effecting real change in the content of anatomy math, and he focuses particularly on the instruction of fractions One theory among educators about why we should teach fractions in domesticate was that manipulating fractions was actually circumferent to what people needed back before there were calculators. So a lot of school math was useful once upon a time, but we now have calculators and so we dont need it.But people say that surely we dont want to be dependent on the calculator. To which I say, go to at this thing, these eyeglasses, that make a melodramatic difference to my life and the life of everybody who reads or looks at any tiny detail. erst upon a time we would have been crippled, ill handicapped. Now weve got these and we dont need to go through all that suffering. So we are dependent on this little thing. Well, so what? There is zilch wrong with being dependent on a little thing that everybody can have lots of. It doesnt even follow much. So, that is no argument.People float the dependence on technology counter-argument against the use of technology in the mathematics classroom bonny frequently. But as Papert notes, is it really all that bad if students became dependent on a technology thats cheap and easy to come by? In fact, here in the US at least, arent most of us dependent on cheap and ubiquitous technologies eyeglasses, running water, car s, kitchen appliances? (And some of those arent cheap ) We dont make students in culinary school learn how to cook over a campfire out of fear theyd become dependent on ovens.Why should we unsure away from calculators? That threat of becoming dependent upon technology to do mathematics is only a real concern, for me at least, under one of two conditions. One is if the technology we use is expensive or other hard to access for some learners. This can be a real problem. But math teachers can combat it by seeking technologies that are cheap or free and easy to access think cheap, functional, sturdy devices like the TI-30X instead of monstrosities like the TI NSpire. (Thats an order of order of magnitude difference in the price there, in case you missed it. Or, as much as I loveMATLAB, its pricy and if accessing it is an issue for students, think instead about open-source alternatives like Octave. The other condition is when our definition of mathematics becomes so restrict that i t includes only those tasks that can be easily farmed out to technology. When you remove all the human elements from mathematics modeling, problem solving, pattern-finding, written expression, and so on and reduce the subject to nothing more than rote mechanics, of course technology poses an existential threat to the discipline.And deservedly so Any discipline that can be replaced by software probably ought to be. removed more of an threat to students long-term victory is the dependency they can develop upon people, especially teachers. If a student has trouble manipulating fractions without a calculator but can read a problem thoughtfully, model a quantitative situation intelligently, and complete and bear out her work independently, I eel pretty good about that students chances in the future. But if a student can ace all the test questions about fractions but cant do anything with a real-world problem without external push and validation from a teacher or other authority (Is this right? , Am I on the right runway? , and so on), thats when theres real trouble, and its got nothing to do with technology. Whos talking about that kind of dependency in school mathematics these days?