Devices Our Vices Evolving Ideas

Question: Discuss about the Devices Our Vices for Evolving Ideas. Answer: Introduction The new era of technology has brought in various innovations and improvement in the lifestyles of human beings. With the development in the technology, lives of people have become much easier and technology oriented. Devices have become the controller of human lives. However, with the era of devices controlling our lives, the question arises, Are devices our vices? This essay highlights the issue that the devices and technology have controlled our lives. People have forgotten to talk, as they Google more. Moreover, the fact that human lives are becoming device dependent has also been focused in this assignment. The various issues that might be caused by the excessive use of technologies such as loss of employment, loss of memory retention power, have been mentioned and discussed in details. Impact of Technology on human Beings An article in the New York Times named Stop Googling. Lets Talk, highlights the issues of becoming device oriented and living a device dependent life. In the modern days, the tech savvy youths mention that they are capable of focusing on the class lectures along with typing in their smart phones at the same time (Carr). However, they remain undetected by the lecturer, who thinks that the student is concentrating in the class lectures. In a study conducted, in 2015, it was highlighted that 89% of the smart phone owners use their phones even during social gatherings (Carr). This statistics highlights the fact that people prefer to talk to a distant person using smart phones and social networking, rather than talking to the people around, attending the social gathering (Turkle). An experiment conducted highlights the fact that in a conversation among 5-6 people, only 3 people concentrate by looking up to the speakers, while others have divided attention as they are busy in their phones and personal devices along with paying some attention to the speaker (Danby). Thus, divided attention is given to the people. Thus, as a result, discussion is light and the in depth knowledge exchange is not achieved. Thus, devices are gaining priority that the human being around. Moreover, virtual relationships are gaining priority than the real life conversations (Carr). People are being more attached to the social networks and devices. Moreover, with the advancements in Google, people gain knowledge using the search engine, rather than gaining knowledge using formal and informal communication with peers and friends. Thus, the phrase Stop Googling. Lets talk , is most appropriately used. Talking to each other and gaining knowledge through conversations and discussions is an effective way of knowledge gain rather than Googling (de la Banda et al.). However, with the advancements in the technology, people prefer using the search engines and Internet, rather than actually talking to each other. Replying to queries have become synonymous to the term Googling. However, with these trends of being technology dependent, the human lives and social lives are highly affected. Families have become distant. People on the virtual world have become closer. Moreover, since human lives are becoming increasingly dependent on the technology, crash of the Internet, might result in the whole world to cease (Carr). With the increase in the dependency on the technology, the smart phones are no longer our necessity, but our lives. Even if phones are not in use, human beings keep searching and Googling, as a part of their habit. Thus, the devices have indeed becoming our vices. Loss of jobs Because of Technologies Another major issue that is raised by the experts around the world is the fact that, with the increase in the use of devices and technologies, and with the increase in the dependency, our jobs would soon be taken up by the robots. Technology is often termed as a double edge sword (Carr). This is so termed as on one hand, technologies and its use are more efficient than the human beings and they are a better substitute of human beings at the workplace (Hertlein). However, on the other hand, the extensive use of technologies destroys jobs. In most of the offices and workplaces around the world, considering any sector of work, computers as well as robots are replacing human beings. As new technologies, replace the human labours, economists highlights that the era of creative destruction has started (Carr). It has been highlighted by the experts, that with the wide use of Internet technologies in the airlines booking systems as well as travel agencies, the concept of travel agents have b ecome obsolete (Kim et al.). Thus, the thousands of travel agents around the world lost their jobs and were force to take up alternative employment options. There are hundreds of such jobs and employment sectors where human labours have been replaced by machines and robots (Henrich). In the race against machines, human beings have been left far behind in the race, and they are still struggling to cope up with the machines and robots. Since machines do not get bored, does not demand salary or increment, does not get tired, nor does they need job satisfaction (Usher). Hence, they are more desirable than the human beings are. Moreover, even in case of perfection, machines are far ahead of human beings. Thus, they are a better replacement of human beings. This might result in the replacement of the jobs by machines as well as the lives of people being controlled by the machines and robots. This is not desirable. Thus, it is essential that the use of the technology and machines is done i n a tactful manner and with intelligence, such that the creators of the machines and devices could retain the control of the devices in their hands. Impairment Due to Technologies Along with the issues of loss of jobs, excessive use of technology makes us use our brains less. The scope of thinking and analytical thinking has been decreasing day by day with the use of technologies (Carr). Researches highlight the fact that the excessive use of the web and technology has a strong and negative impact on the memory retention capacity (Lipson and Kurman). It has been observed that with the use of technology, people tend to set reminders and alerts in their phones and devices and gives the pain of remembering to the devices. Thus, the memory capacities of the human beings are decreased. Before the advent of smart phones and mobile phones, the phone numbers of the family members were memorized (Rogers). However, with the use of these devices people fail to remember their own numbers. Thus, human beings are making themselves paralysed, by the excessive use of technology (Carr). Thus, human beings are themselves employing technologies and robots, and increasing their d ependency on them, thus making their future unstable and insecure. Conclusion Technology and its use is indeed a boon for human lives. It makes our lives easier and smoother. However, the issues arise with the excessive use of technologies. The limit of the use to the human beings need to be set such that the technology cannot exploit the human lives. Since human beings employ technologies, hence it is essential to ensure that the control of the technology is in the hands of the human beings, and not the other way round. This essay highlights the facts that technology is replacing human beings at the workplace, resulting in loss of employment. Moreover, excessive use of technology has been making us less social. Thus, to conclude it might be stated that devices are not our vices. However, since we are the creators of the technologies, the control needs to be retained and the extent of use should be monitored to ensure that devices remain our boons. References Carr, Nicolas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?(2008)."Focused Inquiry: Evolving Ideas2015 (2014): 101-07. Danby, Susan,. "Playing with technology: Young children making sense of technology as part of their everyday social worlds."Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Play: From Birth to Beyond. Springer, 2015. de la Banda, Maria Garcia, et al. "The future of optimization technology."Constraints19.2 (2014): 126-138. Henrich, Joseph.The secret of our success: how culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter. Princeton University Press, 2015. Hertlein, Katherine M., and Katrina Ancheta. "Advantages and disadvantages of technology in relationships: Findings from an open-ended survey."The Qualitative Report19.11 (2014): 1. Kim, Jennifer G., et al. "Labor Saving and Labor Making of Value in Online Congratulatory Messages."SocInfo. 2015. Lipson, Hod, and Melba Kurman.Fabricated: The new world of 3D printing. John Wiley Sons, 2013. Rogers, Yvonne. "Mindless or mindful technology?."Proceedings of the 2014 ACM SIGCHI symposium on Engineering interactive computing systems. ACM, 2014. Turkle, Sherry. "Stop googling. Lets talk."The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www. nytimes. com/2015/09/27/opinion/sunday/stop-googling-lets-talk. html(2015). Usher, Nikki.Making News at The New York Times. University of Michigan Press, 2014.