Final Post

 The way technology has taken over the way we live will go down as one of the most significant changes of the way we live in the history of the world. I don’t think it’s crazy to say that the invention of modern technology is the most impactful invention in human history

That being said, I think our relationship with technology is somewhat dangerous. People have become dependent on social media and technology in general, and it is effecting our society in a negative way in my opinion.

The first negative impact of technology has to do with how addicting it is. There have been plenty of studies showing how social media companies make their platforms incredibly addicting. An interesting metric that comes with this is the screen time tracking feature within settings. I’ve seen people spending as much as 14 hours a day on their phones, which is a disgusting amount. The human body and the human brain was not meant to stare at a screen for very long periods of time like that. I think people’s dependence on technology is very dangerous and will have long term effects on our society.

The second negative impact of technology is it is changing the way people intersect with each other. Nowadays you are seeing more and more kids and teens who have grown up with technology having social problems. I think Covid made these problems worse, but a lot of these problems stem from kids having social anxiety due to spending too much time on social media and playing video games. It is also causing younger people to have mental health problems, with suicide rates in young people continuing to grow. This is a crisis that isn’t going to solve itself, which is why it is important that we do something about it.

The third negative impact of technology has to do with misinformation. When you see news on social media and also the web, there’s virtually no way to know if it is a form of propaganda or if it is real. I think that social media companies are very bad at fact checking and tend to fail the people that use their platform by allowing misinformation to be presented to them. Misinformation is very dangerous and causes people to believe in conspiracies which can be very harmful to our society. One example of this has to do with what happened on January 6th at the White House. People allowed the misinformation about the election being rigged, leading to our capital getting stormed. This was a prime example of the dangers of spreading misinformation.

The last great concern I have with technology is about cyberbullying and the effect it has. Back in the day if there were problems between teenagers, it would get figured out at school and then it usually would end there. Nowadays it’s very easy for cyberbullies to hurt people’s feelings as it’s just a few clicks of a button away. I think this has a major impact on our youth and directly correlates with the rising suicide rates.