Technology Makes Students Lazy

In this age, many people, especially students, use technology to make complicated things simpler—from the use of phones, internet, modern gadgets, appliances and many other services that technology offers. But, if we go beyond what's really happening right now with the use of technological advancements, we are slowly being swallowed by this system, we are being out from the borderline. How does technology make students lazy?

Technology makes students waste their time on using their electronic gadgets rather than studying. Based on the study by Arnold E. Glass, published in the journal Educational Psychology, it was found that allowing students to use smartphones and other gadgets during lectures didn’t make students’ learning lower, but they did got a score at least 5 percent lower in the end-of-term exam likewise the students who didn’t use it because they are distracted by the activity around them. In fact, number of teenagers’ reading is dropping at an alarming rate, as young people shun books, newspapers, and magazines in favor of social media, according to a research by the American Psychological Association. It was revealed that the use of internet has increased 75 percent for the 10th graders and 68 percent in the 8th graders, and the percentage of 12th graders who read books or magazines has decreased from 60 percent in 1970s to 16 percent of the students by the year 2016. The Department of Education have emphasized the call to disallow electronic devices inside the school premises, wherein its goal is to decrease the habit of the utilization of electronic device such as cellular phones and tablets which can affect students’ learning (Alimondo, 2018).

Technology may likely influence students to cheat rather than answering based on their learnings. As per an article of Rachel Williams, several students tried to cheat in the GCSEs and A-levels by sneaking their cell phones and different gadgets into the tests. Half of cases of students lost marks, and in one of every six cases were excluded. In a report by Faiza Elmasry which was published in VOA News, Nile Nickel, who is an innovation and social media expert, says that numerous students place informations in their phones to cheat on their tests, and they also use google glass, a device that can be utilized to record a video and transmit it to a remote site. Prior in the year 2016, several Thai students were found cheating through this gadget to get into a best medical school. In William Turton’s article, schools across the world banned the use of smartwatch as it is an aid for cheating. In this case, Melbourne’s La Trobe University and Sydney’s University of New South Wales both asked students to remove wristwatches before they start their examinations.

Technology has made students lazy which result cutting class to play computer games. According to a research conducted by Michael R. Ward (2018), video games make students to stay away from school and spend more time playing them than studying, in which it is obvious that it really affects the class attendance of a student. Thus, the general increase in the popularity of video gaming has led to a general decrease in educational inputs, although the analysis provides no direct evidence of this longer-term trend. According to GMA News, a group of grade 8 students in Santiago, Ilocos Sur was caught playing in a computer shop during their class hours, thus, the police officers gave them sermon due to their irresponsibility. In PJ Orias' article, distributed on SunStar, a sum of 41 minors were found playing computer games on internet café during the inspection of the Cagayan de Oro City Government in various barangays. 16 minors were discovered playing at an internet café last November 5 at Barangay 14. On November 6, 19 minors were rescued in Barangay 12, while another activity yielded six minors in a piso net in Barangay Carmen Thursday, November 8. Three of the minors rescued in Barangay Carmen were supposedly late for class and were banned from entering the school, therefore, they spent their time at the computer shop, the RCB said. The other three cut classes just to play PC diversions.

It is a known fact that technology decreases labor needs and costs by providing greater access to information, enabling timely and informed decision making, among other things. Technology is popular among students because it helps them do less work. Because technology is of high convenience, technology is now being overused to the point that it gives negative effects to its user. Students may spend more hours using technology because of its wide network, students may be inclined to cheating because of high reliance for its information, and students may also have addiction towards technology which causes them to skip classes and spend more time on technology rather than studying. Although people cannot stop their reliance for technology and its advancement, people are given high responsibility in using it only for good use. People, mostly students, should learn how to balance the use of technology with their study life. The use of technology should only be as an aide and not centered in people's lives.