Technology critical thinking

Introduction

The society we live in is technologically civilized. In all the activities that people are engaged in, they became dependent on the technology. Many people look for identity by the devices or the gadgets that they possess. It can be said that, “ living without technology is living without air.” This makes me believe that people are extremely dependent on technology and this contributes to a change in their lifestyles on daily basis because of the new technological advancements and innovations that takes place. In a civilized technological society, there are tools that are often used by people: the mobile phones, vehicles, TVs, computers, laptops, ipads, iPods, refrigerators, light bulbs, radios and many others. The technological innovations targets to make life easier since electricity provides light in times of darkness, communication devices helps people to interact freely, and vehicles helps in mobility.
In the society, individuals greatly depend on the use of internet to Google search for certain information. With this in people’s mind, I wonder if we live in a world where we take our lives for granted and we don’t appreciate our true nature. In the past, people appeared more creative, hardworking and committed. They used to come up with discoveries from scratch like the clothing they used, making bread and butter, composing traditional songs and helping each other in the society.( Tausch & Herrmann 2002). This is something that the current generation is not in a position to accomplish because o their dependence on machinery objects. This has left the society to be affected by the cyber world placing them more vulnerable.
In instances where there is shortage of electricity supply people become bored and angry in surviving for those moments since they can not access their technology as usual. The dependence of people in technology is evident in the shopping malls and supermarkets. The cashier gives out change without his own calculations and he follows the instructions of the machines used. When one tries to introduce some currencies to assist the cashier to give out the balance, easily gets confused and spends more time to figure that correctly, because the transactions are not automated. Blame the early introduction of the calculators in learning institutions where in the real sense calculators are supposed to be used in a trigonometry class. In the use of computers many people depends on the help of the spell and grammar check software that correct their erroneous mistakes. This is another example of individual’s over-reliance on technology.
In my opinion, I believe that the society have it in their minds that a computer is free from making mistakes. They tend to forget that the accuracy in a computer depends on the settings and the input of information. Many employees blame the computer for not showing that they encountered a mistake during the processing of certain information. The automation of systems locks the young population from gaining experience on working manually. In case a system breaks down, it is hard for people to work in its absence. Confusion fills their heart as they cannot attend to their customers and offer the best service compared with the time when the systems are working in order. The current generation greatly depends on automated machines and they consider this as a part of life and not a luxury.
Text-message conversation is used by people as a way of faster and easier exchange of information and sharing of ideas. This is supported by the technology and without technology it cannot succeed. People use text messages to create alerts and notify their friends and families about important occasions and events like weddings, funerals and parties, (Morton 2003). The use of text can be seen as a waste of precious time especially among the youths. Most of the time, the teenagers gets glued to their phones either in face book or in twitter communicating with their siblings. The technology is perceived as a way that has zombified the lives of people and it continues to make things gets worse on a daily basis.
In the society we live in, most of the people cannot start their cars without notifying their siblings that they have departed, and they ensures that their switch their car’s Bluetooth system on. They also have a habit of checking what’s on their email accounts and predict the time that they will get at their destination places. Technology dependence has increased insurance charges and also the number of road accidents on the highways has gone up. This is because the motorcycles helmets have being equipped with Bluetooth devices and the cyclist do not halt or reduce their speed when they receive a call and this can cause confusion and lead to accidents. Modern technology is jeopardizing lives of many people who seems do depend on it entirely for survival.
In the 21st century, it is hard for people to live in absence of computers. I cannot imagine a situation where people do not have their smart phones, their TV stations are unavailable, no logging in to face book and twitter and their lack the kindle fire. It is hard to figure it out that a person cannot access a laptop to check on his email accounts when he or she wakes up. (Livingstone 2003). Most individuals values and finds it relevant to update their status on the face book and twitter and write about their encounters during their day. This is a prevalent behavior especially among the youths who loves to create attention amongst their friends.
Human beings are in need of use of technology that will help them in: commerce and reliability, the internet use, communications reliance on technology, medicine and in education. On the negative part it leads development of anti social behavior in the society and multitasking overload.
In commerce and reliability technological dependence is evident. The failure of technology will make the markets to stop from operating and the economy will be affected. It is known that the bank and all cash transactions will not be possible to take place and a lot of human resources will go to waste. The network and software components must be designed and installed in a way that their operations will be smooth and effective. The medical field is seen to have been promoted by the use of technology thus making people depend on it for better services that will lead to quick recovery of their ailments. It has a limitation since many people gets engaged in abusing medicine and this lead to further complications and poor health in individuals, (Wagner 2009).

References

Sonia Livingstone, (2003). Children’s use of the internet: reflections on the emerging research agenda.
Williams, Robin; Edge, David (1996). . Research Policy 25. Retrieved August 10, 2006.
Winston, Morton (2003). ” Children of invention”. In in Morton Winston and Ralph Edelbach (eds.),. Society, Ethics, and Technology (2nd ed.). Belmont, Calif.: Thomson/Wadsworth.
Tausch A and Peter Herrmann, (2002). Globalization and European Integration. Huntington NY, Nova Science.