American Society's Growing Dependent On Technology

Technology and computers are rapidly becoming an integral part of society. In fact, it is difficult to even imagine a life without technology. It is improving day by day and from the looks of it our daily life is becoming much more easier and convenient. By first, giving us the ability to transport from one place to the next in cars, subways, and trains without the hassle of having to constantly worry about climate change such as,snow, rain, and Intense summer heat. The transportation system also has its benefits by providing you with air conditioning in the summer heat and cold fall. Another technology advancement is the availability to communicate to individuals throughout the world, which was a huge step for society.The spread of music, news, and ideas from social networking website such as, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, travel faster and to a wide range of audiences in just seconds. This advancement was led after the invention of cell phones, which also plays a huge role in society, there fast, convenient, and easy to use. All the advantages are there and we are obtaining the benefits, but often we overlook the negative effects of Americans dependency on technology such as: obesity, depression, anti socialism, cyberbullying,cancer, hearing loss, low self-esteem, social-comparison biasism, lack of full absorbed knowledge and along with others.

For instance, the social networking websites that cause anti socialism, low self-esteem, depression, and obesity, are directly approached from a cell phone or computer. Many suffer from depression when others are constantly harassing them with brutal comments or when they don’t receive millions of likes and comments from their social peers. While anxiety occurs with constant raid of news and information that can leave one feeling numb to the real world. Social anxiety can also occur when an individual sees all the great things their facebook friends are posting that then make you feel left out. Dana Duong explained how social media, facebook mostly, has caused anxiety to worsen: “ The fear of missing out refers to the social anxiety we get when we feel disconnected from social experiences. On Facebook, you can easily scroll through the feed and be updated on where your friends are, who they're with, and what they are doing—without you,” (Duong, Dana.)Social media can also lead to obesity due to viewing pictures of unhealthy but really tasty foods that are frequently posted and begin to stir up your appetite and urges overindulging. At times, social media can cause one to not eat because they believe what others say about their appearances and some even try to live up to instagram models or simple people including comparing characteristics that soon becomes an obsession or develops into low self-esteem because they don’t look nor receive the same attention as that specific person does. Furthermore, Cell phone owners are constantly checking their phones for messages, social media notifications, and calls even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating. So on, the upgrades that were introduced like the cameras and video apps have caused everyone to just wants to take a picture or video of everything and not live nor feel the moment. For example, when attending shows or a concert, everyone is raising their smartphones recording the show thinking there capturing the moment only to finally realize that you’re physically and emotionally not experiencing the moment.

Cyberbullying has been one of the major issues in america that people have never acknowledged because nothing has been done. The way people communicate with eachother through social networks have changed into something negative. One of the most harmful consequences in the rise of cyber bullying is teen suicide. Some have argued social media is the breeding ground for this behavior and some argued that cyber bullying would still take place even if you remove websites. Despite these arguments, individuals still have the decision to not actively engage in cyber bullying nor the victims. Teen suicide is constantly increasing to where now teens aren’t only victims, youths are being targeted as well. Approximately 2,000 randomly selected middle schoolers in the united states were asked if suicide was attemped due to cyber attacks and “ 19% reported attempting suicide.  “ With regards to cyberbullying rates for individual behaviors ranged from 9.1% to 23.1% for offending and 5.7% to 18.3% for victimization. The most common reported form of cyberbullying was “ 'Posted something online about another person to make others laugh' (23.1%) while the form of victimization was: 'Received an upsetting email from someone you know' (18.3%). (Hinduja, Sameer pg 206-221)

The world is evolving to incorporate technology into every aspect of our lives. Due to this dependency we lose our ability to take care of ourselves in an all natural way. For example, If Americans constantly use smartphones to navigate to locations in your city, you may never learn to read a map or navigate without the aid of a GPS device. Years ago, Americans had to physically go and spend time in the library to look for specific books to get to their answers. Now we have Google, Wikipedia, YouTube etc, that takes seconds, to find an answer and with that benefit comes a negative effect which is reducing the skill of comprehending words to get to those answers.Technology dependency also occurs in jobs, such as when the systems are down, work comes to a standstill. Emails cannot be sent, the needed data cannot be received and sent out to the people outside the field and all the required documentation that is needed to continue work is not accomplished. So, to summarize, when there’s no internet there’s no work. Same goes for education in schools, a recent study has argued that “ schools have swung too far in this direction and are introducing students to computers at a much earlier age than necessary. It has been pointed out that many of our students are too dependent upon computers and that this dependence has come at the expense of other important skills—such as reading and basic math” (Michael Zwagstraa). Technology has driven kids to become lazier when it comes to education because kids prefer to put the simplest math equations into calculators instead of using their brains to work out those math problems. As technology advances our brains will continue to become inactive and our laziness will become more active.

Mobile towers are said to receive and transmit radio frequency signals to your cell phone that can result in health problems like cancer because the body parts nearest to the antenna can absorb this energy. Including the amount of cell phone calls per day send off signals that are transmitted back and forth giving off radio frequency waves into the environment where people can be exposed to them. The World Health Organization has categorized cell phones as being at Carcinogenic risk level of lead, engine exhaust and chloroform.They have found evidence of increase in glioma and acoustic neuroma brain cancer for mobile phone users, but have not been able to draw conclusions for other types of cancers. There are still studies that remain inconclusive such as, the development of cancer and tumors could have a whole host of other effects like cognitive memory function, since the memory temporal lobes are where we hold our cellphones. Moreover, Dr. Henry Lai, research professor in bioengineering at University of Washington who has studied radiation for more than 30 years stated “ When you look at cancer development—particularly brain cancer—it takes a long time to develop. I think it is a good idea to give the public some sort of warning that long-term exposure to radiation from your cell phone could possibly cause cancer,” (Dellorto, Danielle) On the other hand, Technology is constantly improving to the point where americans will soon have to do nothing with the reliance of technology getting all their work done for them.

It may be time to take a step back from technology and truly evaluate society’s position. Society may have taken the step from regular usage to full blown addiction. however, ways society can reduce technology dependency is by grounding themselves. Store the phone away, out of reach, or turning it on airplane mode during lunch, a conversation, reading, and just enjoy what’s around you. Enjoy nature and learn something new about yourself or the world. Another way, stop sleeping with your phone, you’re going to sleep anyways so there’s no need to have it near your bed.The convenience of placing your phone away from you is that when you physically remove it from your presence, you begin to stop yourself from needing it 24/7. A benefit is that when you wake up, you’ll become more motivated to get out of bed and start the day, rather than waking up and spending hours checking your phone to catch up on what you’ve missed throughout the night. Disconnect yourself from technology and work on yourself mentally and emotionally.

In conclusion, it is clear that we depend on technology too much today. Because of the overwhelming amount of new technologies, people can no longer spell, do math, socialize, or do other basic functions on their own. We have become antisocial, nearly incapable of socializing wihtout technology. We need to acknowledge the damaging of technology dependency, and this issue is something society needs to work on as a whole.