How Long Do You Think, You Can Last Without Technologies?

Nowadays, living in modern-day society, technologies are everywhere. Yes, there is no doubt that technologies are essential for us to improve our lives, everyday life is filled with technologies that we use to communicate with others, access a great deal of information, or help save others’ lives. To many people, technology is amazing as it enables us to connect with people around the world and make a huge difference in our daily life. I am convinced that it is a nightmare, a pathway to a destructive future where humans' lives have been destroyed by machines. I strongly believe that technology is badly impacting our lives without us realizing it. My evidence to support my view is the addiction to technology, the influences on our health and lifestyles, and finally, our children's developments.

First of all, the most negative effect of technology is the rise of technology addiction. It is clear that we have access to tech devices nearly all of the time and it is hard to step away. Statistics show that internet addiction in youth varies from less than one percent to nearly forty percent, which means that in every five teenagers, there are at least two people with internet addiction. To take an example to prove my point, Pokémon Go game, a popular game but is too dangerous to not be banned, and there were many incidents that involved people getting hurt or getting killed because their attention was more focused on “catching” various virtual animals. People were walking out in traffic, walking into walls, and there was even an incident where two men were killed when they accidentally walked off a cliff even when there were warning signs posted. It is hard to accept that these apps are intentionally designed to keep us sucked in. In addition, every minute and a half is the average time most of us check back our social media! Maybe we could not even realize but we are looking at our phones while eating, watching TV, and even when driving. How many times have you noticed someone driving while on his or her phone and not paying attention to the road? Sixty percent of drivers admitted that they have looked at their phones while driving according to the ABC news. Last year, there are about two hundred thousand people died from texting while driving in Australia. It is clear that technologies are invented to help us, not making us to become the internet addicts.

Secondly, why technologies worsen our lives is that it makes an impact on our health and lifestyle. The advances in technology result in keeping us glued to our devices, whether on the sofa watching TV or with a cell phone in our hand. What often starts as a quick scroll through social media soon turns into a fall down the rabbit hole with no end in sight? The more time we spend hanging out on YouTube and Instagram, the less time we spend outside doing other things. Furthermore, the negative effects of technology also include the idea that we are constantly plugged in. We wake up and immediately reach for our cell phone or electronic device. We check out our devices every single time. For many of us, the last thing we see before going to sleep is our electronic device. It is estimated that an average person spends a third of their day looking at a screen and teens spend nearly eighty percent of their free time on social media according to the Washington Post. From this evidence, we can see that we are capturing ourselves in those electronic devices. Some effects of overusing technologies on our body are bad sleeping habits, neck pain, and bad posture. Next, the radiation created by technology causes ears and brain problems. It is difficult to sit up straight when you are stooped over your cell phone. Many of us are suffering from back and neck pain because of not sitting up straight. We do not hold our phone at eye level when we are looking at it, either. Instead, we typically lean over with our heads down to examine it. All of this leads to poor posture, neck and back pain, and imbalance sleeping habits from constantly using our devices. 

Do parents have an advantage in raising their children with technology? 

Finally, yet importantly, technologies do make an impact on children's education and development. Technologies do not only make an impact on our health and lifestyle but also on the education and development of our innocent children. Nothing is more important than our next generations, our future. Thanks to limited regulations on social media, nearly anything goes! Drugs and sexually explicit content are widespread and accessible to everyone. While this may be fine for a consenting adult, it is something that should never be available to young children. This impact of technology is a big one for those who are worried about their children. Explicit videos and violence are easily accessible all over the web. While you may try your best to use parental controls, your child is still bound to see more than they need to see at one point or another. However, we needed to notice that what are we teaching our children or what are the children being taught by us? They see us all wrapped up in our phones and nothing else in the world matters. Parents need to teach them how to put down their phones for a while and actually learn some other skills. Adults that are too busy to pay attention to what is really going on in this world and they need to take more action to protect their child from technology. It’s now the time for parents to weigh up what is more important, their children’s development and education or some useless time consuming social media scrolling? Technology is too wide to imagine, your children may now be in danger of technology addiction, associated with non-children contents, and even cyberbullying. Anything of them can affect their whole life. With technology, you can bully someone without them even knowing your name or what you look like. Nearly fifty percent of teens in the age of adolescence have been cyberbullied. Moreover, in most of the classrooms, students must bring their devices to almost every class. They looked at their screens for learning about a minimum of five hours per school day plus about nine hours of their free time on social media, this adds up to fourteen hours per day. Just thinking about our future leaders are sticking their eyes onto the screens, it scares me. Don’t you think that we need to put down our devices as an example to our children. We need to travel to places they have never seen. We need to show them that there is a world out there and that it is amazing. Isn’t it clear that what they see every day is people too busy with their eyes glued to their devices, they will soon follow what we did. 

Now we have seen the impacts of modern technology in our life, it is our responsibility to use technology to improve our lives but we also have to make sure that we preserve our lives. If we don’t control the usage of technology, we shall end up killing ourselves. What I am trying to persuade my audience, is that we need to take a little break now and then, put down our mobile devices and phones and enjoy the world around us. What are we surrounding ourselves with? Is the technology that amazing? What are even we teaching our children? Yes, I understand that you may feel guilty right now, but not just only feelings or thoughts, we need to take into actions, and there is no time to waste, we need to lead our lives, our futures, not to be led or to be affected by those non-feeling machines. While we once think and rely on technologies, we now need to face this painful reality that it is ruining our lives. Together, even a small action can influence and improve our future lives. Let’s just put down those technology devices, free ourselves and communicate with others, and trust.