Waking up early in the morning with the chirping of birds enjoying the mesmerizing sight of a rising sun, closely bound to nature and their duties, old men, our ancestors have lived their lives to the fullest with no distractions. They had a simple life, but the scenario has changed today because of technology. In this modern era of electrical circuits, we are under pressure, let it be from work or something else, always distracted and have lost that simplicity our ancestors had in their life
There are numerous sensations that technology has offered us.
Technologies have helped to connect with our friends from anywhere around the world, making us feel their presence just a fingertip away. The food, dress and day to day life essentials get delivered at our door steps with no need to go to shopping malls and wandering in the markets have made life so much easier.
The talented ones, like artists, singers, writers, bakers etc, have got a new platform to exhibit their skills online through social media accounts, making them flourish in their respective fields. Availability of online courses by reputed universities worldwide has helped many students to achieve their dream career just by sitting in their home itself.
The home assistant is another popular sensation of technological advancement. Amazon and Google home assistant are a few among them. All this is just artificial intelligence which can do a variety of things for us, including playing one’s favorite music,films, cartoons, making calls for you, putting up switches etc. Thus, Alexa and Google have made enormous changes to our lives…
Another miracle of technology is social media. Today, every single person has their own social media account, whether it be on Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter or Facebook. For us, all these have been an inevitable part of our day-to-day life.
The intention of all these sites was to make people connected from all over the world, but despite its intentions, it has created a virtual extension of humans in the digital world. It has especially affected the teens, making them emotionally vulnerable.
As time passed by, technology had enormous advancements, but we were not able to realize that something that was created by us itself was putting us into a huge trap. Just like the two faces of a coin, everything has its own pros and cons, but coming to technology, the prose was not much bothered because advancements in technology was always seen as a reason for the betterment of a society and has turned out to be a savior for us. It has reduced human labor and saved time.
Even though technological advancement is very exciting to see, the negative impact of the same, especially on children, could be brought into consideration. With developed technology, depression and mental health issues have risen to a huge level . Technology was created with the intention of creating connectivity among people.
It has actually caused a virtual gap between humans and emotional connections have been lost in every relationship. Lack of sleep, ADHD etc has also seen to be raised with the increased use of technology in day today life with increase use of social media everyone including the teens are supposed to spend a huge time sitting idle on their beds or chair with their gadgets decreasing the amount of physical activities causing obesity.
Major threats include the Cyber bullying, spreading of fake news. Cyber crimes have increased because of the ease of creating fake accounts on social media, causing many issues in the name of the real person. Decreased communication and intimacy with parents and family members have also been found. Hearing loss, stressed vision,pain in the muscles and joints,heart diseases, emotional instability are the very few effects of technology on human health.
Dr. Christian Louis Lange, a Norwegian, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 1921 said that “Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master”, about the development of technology in the 20th century. He meant to describe how helpful technology is to people but also wanted to warn us about the situation where this could create a scale in our relationships turning us impatient, overshadowing truth and justice.
We can’t compel anyone to completely avoid the use of technology so as to live the life lived by our ancestors. But keeping in mind the impact of technology on our lives, each one should create healthy boundaries to it. Thus, to ensure we do not become slaves to our own inventions.
By: akhilaspulikkal
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