The Effect of Modern Day Technology
World Literature II November 22, 2010 Cause and Effect Essay 590 Words The Cause and Effect of Modern Day Technology “The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour. ” Ray Bradbury’s character of Beatty explains how technology has negatively had a negative effect in Fahrenheit 451. Technology transforms around us every day and almost every day new technology comes out that makes last year’s technology seem almost prehistoric.There is no question that technology has made life easier and more convenient as well as, travel faster and life saving medical advancements. It is hard not to wonder how much one actually depends on these new technologies and how they could be used to control everyone. Will the effect of all this technology be good or bad in the long run? Today in our economy we have less people needed for manufacturing and processing jobs and thus a surplus of desk jobs and product designing jobs.
These jobs then result in even higher productivity and more advancements.This never ending cycle of productivity and advancements leaves us dependant on technology. In the book The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the main character Offred explains how new technology was being introduced until the country became dependent on it. Suddenly that technology and the way she had learned to live is taken away and people were lost without it. Some unknown dystopian empire then easily controlled these people that now couldn’t do anything. What if something like that were to happen today, the government started tracking where everyone goes through, navigation systems in cars, or phones and who knows what else.Radio transmitting chips are already being implanted in some dogs so that their owners can find them if they get lost.
This same technology could be implanted in kids to prevent kidnappings or in criminals when released from prison. While all of this sounds great at the time, will that technology later be used against us just like it was against Offred? Will governments track all of our movements? Will our thoughts and ideas be read before we can speak them? Will satellites look into our homes to make sure we are eating the right foods?Even today’s news headlines are filled with reports regarding the full body scanners at airports. While all of us want to be safe when flying and the argument is strong for the scanners, the expense or effect of it leaves us literally naked to the government. According to 24/7 Wall St. com, “the list of devices the Smartphone has begun to replace, and in some cases, that process is so far along that the older products have almost disappeared. ” Will technology put more and more people out of work? Will the work that technology replaces humans leave us all lazy because we are not using a physical effort anymore?On the other hand technology has been very beneficial to us. Technology has made us tremendously more efficient and productive, some technology at least, other technology however, is designed to makes us less productive.
Hopefully this trend will increase. Some companies have already acknowledged that privacy is an important freedom and are putting things out to help people. For example Apple has acknowledged that people don’t like the idea that they could be tracked through their iPhone without warning.To decrease these fears they created icons that show up on your phone and allow you to see when an application is using your current location, as well as options to limit which applications can use your location. Hopefully more companies will follow in their lead and eliminate possibility of this negative effect of depending on modern day technology. Technology will only be advancing more and the human race will hopefully not succumb fully to it. We have to make good decision regarding how far we will let technology replace the human brain—the ultimate computer.
Like Ray Bradbury’s quote, we will no longer have a chance to think.
