Technology is an important aspect in both developing and developed communities that focus on the innovation of highly sophisticated advances in neuroscience, computing, and biotechnologies. It holds a promise to transform our world for our sake and create overall availability with a character development where newer and improved mechanisms are developed to simplify work. Innovations enable a smooth running of our community with both positive and negative impacts on individual thinking and freedom. It changes how we think and takes various activities. Innovation is dominant in industrialization, transportation, and security sectors, and such changes have helped in the simplifying of work through enabling more work done in minimal time. The primary goal behind Technology is to promote human freedom and critical thinking that focuses on an intelligent and caring society. However the trend today shows it as a tool that is responsible for the control of social life and critical thinking.
Human identity that explains and defines who we are could be facing an unmeasured threat from rapidly growing technology. Different aspects of how we behave, and what we do today are increasingly changing with the changing technology. “although they don’t dictate values, technical analyzes and accomplishments profoundly influence social philosophies” (Hanks, 2013). However, this crisis could redefine how we relate and interact with other people, change what makes us happy and also alter our capability for attaining our full potential as individuals. It is all discussed as one fact that illustrates that the most sensitive part of the body is under threat by the developing technology that seems taking up more of its responsibilities.
Philosophers have linked brain development to the surrounding environment. Research also states that human brains develop and change to adopt in response to the outside stimuli.
Technology limits the mind’s freedom, creativity, and imagination in a slight and undetected way. Through our dependency on it for entertainment, we exercise little creativity because we view and believe that the applications on our devices are “awesome”. When we depend on these available applications, our imaginations and creativity are not exposed because various sites possess enough of what we want. This aspect presents an adverse influence on our thinking since our minds are aware that we have what we want whenever we need them.
Technology offers a negative influence on a developing mind because it creates a gap between an individual and the reality. The availability of unexpected and pleasant music to a young person listening to an iPod is appealing. However, this process limits individuals from real-life challenges and new experiences which in turn results in a community of half-baked abilities due to lack of experience. Researchers have connected human development to new experiences and personal relationships and, therefore, any process that separates an individual from such aspects hinder its development.
Social skills are essential in the development and quality of thinking for each person. However, research shows that people who frequently us the internet spend up to 100 minutes less time communicating to the physical community and friends. The situation, therefore, leads to reduced personal communication, a factor responsible for poor communication skills among age-groups. Weak communication skills are also responsible for stress, feeling lonelier and overall negative of mental and physical health.
Today, everything around us has been modified to make our lives more comfortable. It is the main reason most of us had left thinking for only experts. Unlike ancient days when people aimed at new invasions, due to technology people depend on a uniform pre-modeled solution rather than invasion to think and answer many questions. This aspect poses a threat to development of new ideas since technology only processes programs discovered by humans.
Technological advancements have also turned individuals from experimenters and discoverers to mere researchers. Unlike the old days when somebody made scientific experiments, today search engines such as Google negatively affect these procedures since one can quickly search for a similar experiment on the internet without following any procedures. These search engines are a great hindrance our ability to discover and create new ideas.
However, the effect of technology depends on the people who are using. It is considered one of the best developments that have enabled hard experiments to run successfully.
Healy, (1998) stated, “Computers won’t make bad teachers into good ones.” However, choices in technology that reflects on important philosophical differences and makes a change not only on what we teach but also how we teach it. Technology is just a mechanism through which work is made more flexible, easier and faster. With the help of internet based technology, we get access to large sums of data that help us to get solutions to various real life problems. Many calculations that would take very long have also been made easy by use of computers.
Innovations in technology are not invading ability to think or work but rather improving our capabilities. With improved technology, smartness and perfection have increased. Simple calculations and challenging experiments are possible by the use of computer programs, (Crook, 2015). As individuals, we still need first to study before we apply them in order to fulfill our instability for knowledge.
With internet enabled technology, the world has been turned into one global village where information and experiences are available in one platform. Different researchers carry out experiments and post them on the internet. It has equipped other similar researchers with the same knowledge and has increased the amount of what we know about different problems affecting us today.
Unless we wake up to the damaging effect the device filled and pharmaceutically-enhanced 21st century, the general population may be sleepwalking to a tomorrow where there is no difference between people and machines. Innovation in technology has a negative effect on ordinary social interactions with an effect of detaching us from the reality around us. It also limits physical communications and encourages the idea of instant gratification, (Information Resources Management Association & Khosrow-Pour, 2000). Individuals should be able to use technology while not allowing it to limit communal interaction especially for those who easily fall for the increasing changes in technology. The community should, therefore, embrace technology without accepting its adverse effect on the brain development and work.
References
Crook, C. (2015). Better-off; In The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired World. New York: New Society Publishers, 3(1), 35-40.
Hanks, (2013): The Relation of Science and Technology to Human Values; In Technology and values – essential readings with philosophy of technology set. S.l.: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 9(1), 38-40.
Healy, J. M. (1998). Digital dreams meet reality. In Failure to connect: How computers affect our children’s minds–for better and worse. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1(1), 37-40.
Information Resources Management Association, & Khosrow-Pour, M. (2000): A social-technical perspective; In Challenges of information technology management in the 21st century Hershey, PA: Idea Group Pub, (pp. 570-572).