the essay was interesting and the subject was easy He thought it was organized well
Roy Kantrowitz Mr. Ingram
English 101/105 Report
"The Recent Negative Effect of Technology on Society"
Ever since the Industrial revolution, technology has been changing at a fast pace.
People are always wanting a better lifestyle therefore there is always something new
arising so humans can cope with their physical environment. One of the most important
breakthroughs for technology was the agricultural system. The agricultural system was
the basis for the technology of the future. The agricultural system brought on the need
for transportation, workers and even, battles over land. The need for transportation
brought vehicles into the market. The need for employees brought mechanical robots
into society. Battles over land brought on the need for sophisticated weapons. The
agricultural system brought on a revolution. The invention of the television can bring
media and other forms of entertainment into your house with video and audio combined.
Thank You for Your Visit, Have a Nice Day (Wearabl...
English: Looking south from Top of the Rock, New Y...
New York City HallBefore 1950, newspapers and radio were the only ways to bring media or entertainment
into the house. Mass production and other job opportunities brought many people from
the suburbs and farms into the city. We can now have forms of electricity directed into
our houses for heating and light. Humans are more reliant on technology then ever
before. All of these technological advances sound great, however, there is a negative
effect to all this technology. Technology can serve to actually harm humans rather then
help them. Competition between companies or even cities can sometimes make lives for
humans even worse. Take for example when a city builds better and more roads to
attract tourists. This actually creates more traffic, not less. Technology also changes our
sense of common purpose. New inventions such as the personal computer and machines
can change our lifestyles. Even things we take for granted such as the automobile have
negative effects on technology. The oil needed for a car to run needs to be imported and
sometimes accidents such as the Exxon Valdez incident spills many gallons of oil into
the ocean. All of these examples show how technology has negative effects on society.
First, competition can lead to a negative effect of technology. When a company
in the U.S. produces shoes and a company in Great Britain produces shoes as well, they
must fight for their market share. Lets say the company in Great Britain purchases more
machines that will reduce the amount of workers needed and improve output, then they
can reduce the price of their product. If the company in New York doesn't follow in
their footsteps then they could be forced out of business. In this case the company is
forced into buying the machines just so they can stay in business. This has a negative
effect on the employees who will be replaced by the new machines. When a city wants
to attract tourists by building better roads to lessen traffic there is a mistake because this
will only create more traffic since there will be more people wanting to travel these
roads. McManus says the inability to see the future is responsible for the negative effects
of new technologies. He also states better roads cause more traffic congestion, not less.
By creating better roads, more people will want to travel these roads (A-1). If New York
City built a new sophisticated highway to attract more tourists then more New Yorkers
will want to travel these roads as well. Many New Yorkers who previously used mass
transit to travel to work will now want to use a car to travel to work. In effect there will
be more traffic and more pollution. There will be other side effects as well. Real estate
values of areas near the highway could go down. Competition can help a community in
one aspect however it can hurt it as well. Competition can directly stimulate the
economy, however, long term effects such as pollution and the loss of jobs could explain
why the City of New York doesn't complete a project like this.
Second, technology can change our sense of common purpose. For millions of
years, mankind has been used to doing everything for themselves. For a long time
peoples' main concerns were survival. To survive means to go out into the woods or
forests and shoot animals for the food which the family needs to eat for the day. People
of modern society never think about hunting for food or clothes. Now, it is all brought to
people instantly through a new standard of survival. The new standard for survival
means making money to go to a mall or supermarket and getting everything a family
needs. A family can get food and clothing at these places without ever having to go into
a forest or a lake. This thought is ever so frightening. When a person from modern
society goes into a supermarket and buys a pound of fish, he or she doesn't even think of
the process that went into the arrival of that piece of fish. He or she didn't need to go to
a lake, all that was needed was to drive to your local supermarket and buy it. No fishing
or hunting was necessary. Humans are losing their sense of common purpose. "But what
'revenge effect' will this have? The technology- resistance movement begins by pointing
out that we are cobbling together virtual communities while our real cities crumble, at
least partly because our sense of common purpose has frayed. Today, only about 5
percent of American households are on-line, but what happens, the critics wonder, when
half the country is wired? Will we escape the unpleasant complications of the world
outside our locked doors by opting for communities in 'cyberspace,' where we can enjoy
the company of people who share our interests and our views? Where the streets never
need to be cleaned and you don't have to keep an eye on your neighbor's house? What
happens if the sirens outside become too distracting? Will we simply buy insulated
drapes? (Reed 46)." Humans are getting lazy. Almost everything must be done for them
in advance. However, sometimes this change in lifestyle is forced upon humans. When a
company decides to buy robots to do the job that man once did, then the human is forced
into either getting fired or watching the machine all day long. Hopefully humans will not
get used to watching a robot do all the work for them. Technology has definitely
changed the lifestyle and common purpose of many humans.
Finally, tecnology we take for granted such as the automobile can have a negative
"domino chain effect" on society. The automobile must have been one of the greatest
inventions in the last 100 years. It has helped the United States to grow in ways never
imaginable before. It allowed people to move out of highly congested cities and move
into more peaceful neighborhoods. Yet it also let people feel as if they were still a short
drive away from the city. However, the negative effects of the automobile were not
thought of in those days. Now it is clear of what negative effects the automobile has on
society.
In recent years, though, we have begun to realize just how much
these ways of making life easier are costing us--or future
generations. Think about everything that's involved in the act of
driving a car. First, the metal in the body of the car has to be
mined. The plastic on the dashboard and other places probably
came from petroleum. (Plastics can also be made from coal or
natural gas.) Petroleum also becomes the gasoline that powers the
car. Extracting the petroleum involves wells and refineries all
over the world. Tankers carry the oil across the seas. Sometimes,
as in the case of the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska's
Prince William Sound, they spill it. Spills can kill birds, fish, and
marine mammals by the thousand. But major tanker spills
account for only 12 percent or so of the oil that enters the sea in a
typical year. The rest--less dramatic but more
destructive--comes from routine operations such as loading and
unloading of tankers. Cleaning up after spills and urban pollution
is a daunting task, but it can be done. (Herring 19)
Automobiles are a good example of how technology can backfire on this world.
Automobile exhausts are polluting the atmosphere so much that the next big
technological advancement should be to find a way to heal the environment. However,
healing the environment sounds like a great plan except the demand for the use of
automobiles, planes and trains keep rising. As the demand rises, there will be a need to
find enough oil and petroleum to run these modes of transportation. Soon, there will
not be enough of these resources left and there will be severe counter-effects on society
if all of these modes of transportation are taken away. Humans take for granted these
modes of transportation. Humans often live miles away from their place of business.
No transportation means there is no way to get to work unless you switch to a job
within walking range of your house. No transportation means no money and eventually
no food. The reliance on technologies we take for granted is also a negative effect of
tecnology.
In conclusion, society has recently seen the negative effects of society.
Competition between cities and companies has taken away jobs and brought unwanted
and costly projects into pleasurable areas. A change in lifestyle among almost every
human being is yet another negative effect of technology. What has happened to
people since supermarkets came to town? People do not want to hunt for food
anymore. They find it much easier to walk into a store and purchase it. A third reason
why technology has a negative effect on society is the advent of highly reliant
possessions such as the automobile. Many people count on traveling to work everyday
by car. If the car was somehow taken away from people then there would be chaos. It
is much too late to take it away. Humans are much too reliant on it. There is not
enough mass transit to transport all of the present car users. Hopefully, future
technologies will be fully considered. We must look at the advantages and
consequences and measure if society will benefit or suffer from the technology. Past
technologies weren't fully considered and if they were, there is a chance that the
automobile never would have went into production.