A Better Life for Society | Teen Ink

A Better Life for Society

April 26, 2016
By Laurenjudd BRONZE, Wyckoff, New Jersey
Laurenjudd BRONZE, Wyckoff, New Jersey
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco had told The New York Times in 2010 that “We are exposing our brains to an environment and asking them to do things we weren’t necessarily evolved to do” (Holmes).  What he means by this is that technology has been taken to a whole new level.  100 years ago, people would have never imagined where the world would be today.  The people in society had created new technology that has changed the way people are living.  Although, instead of technology making our day to day routine better, too much of it is harming people. Technology is negatively affecting people in society because it not only decreases people’s health, but also subjects children and teens to cyberbullying and impacts people’s relationships with one another.   


To begin, technology is negatively impacting people because it is decreasing people’s physical health.  Everyday, when people are constanting using their phones or other digital devices, it impairs their health.  Usually, a person tilts their head 60 degrees when they are on their phone which can damage a person’s spine (Holmes).  Keeping your phone at this 60 degrees for a long amount of time could be terrible.  This could put stress on one’s back or give them a sore neck.  Every phone a person owns is contaminated with harmful bacteria.  This is caused by what the person touches and transfers to their device (Holmes).  Since people are always taking their phones everywhere they go, it is easy for it to attract germs that people do not always no is there.   This bacteria is harming people's bodies.  About 70 percent of adults have said that they experienced symptoms of eye strains or headaches from a digital device after they had been looking at their computer or phone screens (Holmes).  Many people or students who do work on a computer may experience these effects of looking at the screen for too long.  When someone feels these effects, it could alter their health. Although most of these are short term effects, there is evidence proving how technology can impair a person’s health permanently.  Researchers have found that sitting at a desk and looking at a computer screen all day will affect a person’s stature (Holmes).  Growth and neck/back problems are long term effect that could be caused from the use of too much technology.   To conclude, by using less technology, people will live a better lifestyle because it will not be physically harming them.


Similarly, technology has socially impacted people for the worse by allowing cyberbullying. In 2014. A Nielsen survey results were that Americans spend 11 hours on social media (Leady). Cyberbullying is affecting kids who are constantly on their computers.  More than 1 in 3 adolescents have experienced cyber bullying threats (Leedy).  Teenage obsessions with their phones has allowed many people to suffer these mean online bullies which is created by their own insecurities.  If people were to spend more time away from their computer they would notice a change in their life and would not get caught up in the lastest 20th century drama.  Cyberbullying has become popular because it is easier for a person to hide behind a screen than to say a terrible comment to someone's face (Leady).  This has proven the insecurity in a person and is why one would cyberbully another.  Even though cyber bullying is big, there is a simple solution for the future.  People should spend less time on their devices.   Results of a tests created by the Cyberbullying Research Center showed that 20% of the responders who were cyberbullied, had considered suicide (Leady).  Suicide is a big problem that sadly many people consider.  The more people who use social media, the higher probability of a cyberbully and suicidal case to occur.  Some may think that bullying is good for people and makes them stronger.  Although, people should never have to go through these circumstances.  In life people could end up getting hurt and making terrible decisions that could change the rest of their life if they are bullied.  It is mandatory for people to stop paying so much attention to their online world, and more to their real one so this does not continue to happen.  Overall, by people giving up some of their time that was spent on devices and social media, they will live a happier lifestyle by not being drawn into cyberbullying situations.


Lastly, technology is negatively affecting relationships with others because people would spend more time with a digital device, than with family or friends. From a study made by the Pew Research Center, they found that 89 percent of adults had used their phone at the last social gathering they had attended (Turkle).  This means that they were not taking advantage of the opportunity of making conversation with others and enjoying people's compan.  Society should become less addicted to their phones and other digital devices because it can interfere with the time people have that should be spent with family and friends.  College students say that they have “learned the skill” of how to to text while looking and talking to someone else (Turkle).   This is very disrespectful “skill” people use because the other person is not getting their full attention.  If all people start to act this way than is will ruin relationships and not allow people to really connect.  Hilary Stout, the writer of the article Antisocial Networking, says that kids are not communicating as much as they used too.  20 years ago when people would send letters, their writing would be put in paragraph form.  Today, kids are texting short words or phrases (Stout).   Communication could be easily lost by texting.  This could cause people's relationship to diminish because of the lack of communication.  People could call from a phone or write in proper sentences so this miscommunication does no longer occur.   Even though technology is allowing people to communicate at all times, it is harmful by distracting people from engaging in conversation with ones they are with.  Thus, relationships are important and are affected majorly by the overuse of new technology because people are not setting aside time to spend 100% of their time with one another.


As aforementioned, the future will have an overall negative impact on the the people in society from the overuse of technology.  If our generation is not the people to make a difference and change the world, it will never be fixed.  Technology is decreasing people's health, allowing for kids to be cyberbullied, and tremendously changing the strong relationships that people once knew of.  People need to put down the phones and computers, and open their eyes because there is so much they are missing in our world.  People always say that technology is our future.  But is that what we really want for our world?



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