The impact of technology
Introduction
Technology plays an important role in the lives of Humans from the very beginning. It has been found in report research that more than 80% of young children and teenagers access any form of communication technology on their day to day basis. Cell phones are also seen to play an important role in social interactions. Cell phones are vastly used by young people and students as well to keep up to date with friends and feel the sense of belonging somewhere. Issues of any technology start when the technology is misused or overused by any individuals, similarly, children are seen to use their phones at the time of study or sleep.
Some of the common problems due to technology are as follows-
If a developing country lacks capital then it would not be able to enjoy the benefits of modern technologies as its expensive, again a developed country overuse the technology as they have enough money to do so. Technological development has been a very slow process, particularly for the developing countries. According to the economic, political and social well-being these countries has faced difficulty in adopting technology Apart from that majority of the world’s population is still underdeveloped and uneducated. Thus it becomes difficult to get these people acquainted with the new technologies. Technologies have been developed in developed countries in order to suit their needs and making their ways of life better. But the needs and means of technologies are different in the case of undeveloped countries, therefore various condition exists in both developed and underdeveloped country form many obstacles to adopt new technologies. It has been noticed that technology has grown very fact for the developing nations that the existing technologies get obsolete. When that technology researches the underdeveloped world it is declared as vintage variety in developed countries. That is one of the reasons that undeveloped countries could never properly utilized a new technology. Overuse of technologies also comes with lack of innovators. In developed countries the technologies are more of capital incentives, overuse of technology and scarcity of labour has resulted in a high wage rate in these countries recently. In comparison in developed countries need the advancement of labour-intensive technologies.
Some of the Psychological effects of overuse of technology are Isolation- technologies such as social media are made with the intension of bringing people together, but it has some negative effects as well. A research that was conducted in 2017 on adults age from 19-32 has found out that the people who are using social media more than 3 times a day feel more socially isolated than the one who does less. Depression and Anxiety is another reason of technology overuse. The authors of a 2016 review have shed light on the relationship between social networks and its effect on mental health such as anxiety and depression. Though the result of the researched was mixed but more evidently it was found that the people who encountered positive interaction in social media’s are having fewer amounts of depression and anxiety.
Some of the physical health effect of overuse of technology like Eyestrain. Technologies like cell phones, computers, tablets etc hold a person’s attention for a long period, and this usually leads to eyestrain in an individual. The technological factors that lead to eyestrain are-Screen time, Screen brightness, Screen glare, Poor sitting posture, Viewing too close or too far away, Vision issues. Poor posture is common for the people who use cell phones or laptops for quiet sometimes they may face the problem of poor posture. Eventually, this may lead to musculoskeletal issues like Sleep problems. Using technologies just before bedtime can hamper the sleep pattern of an individual. This occurs because of the blue light that is usually emitted from cell phones, computers or tablet screens. Reduction of physical activities, as it is known that digital technologies are sedentary. Hence more usage of this kind of technologies would only lead to more sedentary lifestyle than an active one, which would enable in negative effects on health leading to Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Cardiovascular disease, Premature death etc. As children’s brain is still developing hence the effect of technology and social media’s might be more sensitive for them than that of adults. Research that was conducted in 2018 showed an adverse effect on children using various technologies. Overuse of technology in Children may result in Low academic performance, Low creativity, Lack of attention, Language development delay, Social and emotional development delay, Poor sleep quality, Obesity, Social issues like anxiety and incompatibility, Addiction to technologies, Aggressive behaviour and so on.
The ways to reduce the overuse of technologies are- in the initial growth stages the underdeveloped countries must prefer to adopt labours. Technologies must be focused to increase employment opportunity rather than decreasing it in various countries by providing people with enough knowledge and skills to run those technologies. While developing new technique considerations should be made on existing culture and social scenario of the country so that coordination should be possible with the new technology apart from that it should also be compatible with the already existing technologies. Proper researches should be conducted on the part of the country before launching of technology. Research centres should be able to properly trained personnel and adequate facilities. the side effects of technologies would decrease to a considerable extent if proper training is provided regarding the technology from how to avoid misuse to stop the overuse of technologies. It should be advised that underdeveloped countries must try to develop their own technologies and avoid importing technologies from developed countries.
The recent boom in technology has changed the lifestyle dynamics of the majority of the population in the world. Although technologies have many positive effects it comes with certain negative aspects as well. Thus anyone sure about the ill effects of technology on them would surely want to take steps that would cut back on their overuse of technology and screen timing to revaluate the feelings without these devices.
