The Social and Educational issues with Technology to the General Public

Today’s generation teenagers spend a third of their lives looking at a screen(Oran). Could you imagine? If you are 18, you have spent 6 years (6 years!!!) looking at a screen. Also, when you think about it, people don’t start looking at a screen constantly until about age 12 or 13. So most of our teenage  lives (13-19) is sitting there looking at a screen, whether that it is doing work, social media, watching tv, whatever it is, it is still pulling us away from our everyday lives by looking at a screen.

Fitting this idea into one blog post would only be able to hardly scratch the surface of this controversial topic. So many opinions are different in how they see this idea. Some may believe that technology gives us so much opportunity. While I agree with these people, I don’t agree that this is true for the general public of this 21st century generation. Scientists, professors, doctors, etc. are the ones who benefit greatly and in turn allow us to benefit as well.

The amount of advances in todays world that we have been able to achieve because of techonology is astonishing. 25 years ago, the idea of being able to talk to one another whenever and wherever in the world with something that weighs less than a wallet, was unheard of.  The amount of medical advances and medicines that the world has now, would have never been able to come about without technology. So no, tech is not all bad, as most would agree.

But when we have tech in our own hands, we do not utilize it to benefit us. I witnessed this first hand.  I found myself wrapped up in social media and being on my phone or looking at a screen for a large part of my free time. I would find myself getting jealous when I would see my friends doing something fun while I was just sitting there looking at their fun experience. It was that at that moment when I deleted all my social media, because I realized this: why would I spend my time watching other people having a good time rather than doing something myself. That is why I feel so passionate that technology causes such a distraction,  because I have felt the never ending trap of it.

It causes distraction. One of the best examples is right here:

Texting and driving, proven to be more dangerous than drinking and driving. Point 1 toward technology is harming teenagers. And if you don’t believe that texting and driving is that dangerous, and that you are a “good multitasker” take a look and this video. 

Not only does it cause a distraction for drivers and  young drivers especially, tech distracts young kids from enjoying their childhoods. How many times have you seen kids just sitting on computers or tablets and not going outside to play, or not interacting with others. Kids used to actually enjoy their childhood, have childhood memories, those memories are thinning out because now all the memories are of a screen. Point number 2. 

Who looks like they are having more fun?

So obviously, socially, technology can have major negative effects. But it also has some positives in a social scene. There has been research done that proves that texting can actually help student writers. Michaela Cillington conducted the research in order to find out that texting can have benefits, “They are engaging in written communication rather than oral speech, texting teens learn how to convey their message to a reader in as few words as possible”(364). So yes, in order to text someone, we are straight to the point and don’t add any extra unneeded information. This can lead into concise writing in the classroom for all level schooling. Along with being more concise and more efficient with ones writing,  people are able to utilize technology to benefit writing skills alone with social skills of communicating with one another with instant messaging.

As for tech causing negatives in an educational environment, the same idea applies, the idea of today’s generation not being able to use tech for the right reason. It is almost as if technology is taking advantage of these people, causing them to be distracted from what  they need to be doing.

Works Cited

Cullington, Michaela. “Does Texting affect Writing.” They Say I Say. Eds. Cathy

Birkenstein,Gerald Graff and Russel Durst. New York: W.W. Norton, 2015.

361-372.

 

Oran, Nicole. “Teenagers Today Have Spent a Third of Their Lives Looking at a Screen.”

MedCity News. MedCity, 19 Apr. 2016. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.