Is technology making lives easier for us?

We are living in a time of exciting and rapid revolutionary changes in the world. The use of

modern inventions like cell phones, TV and Internet has become common in our lives. For most

of us, life without these inventions is a nightmare. As the society progresses, technology is

becoming more and more advanced. Most people would think that technology has made their

lives easier for them and consider it as a blessing. However, from my point of view, technology

has done quite the opposite. While considering technology from the usability point of view,

various social and economical effects of technology need to be considered.

Technology has made lives easier and quicker but dangerous as well. Taking in consideration

some of the modern daily life inventions such as internet helping us to get information faster and

allowing us to stay connected with friends and family, microwave helping us cook faster or the

TV allowing us to watch a number of different channels might seem to us as making our lives

easier and efficient but having a look at the other side of the mirror exposes some shocking truths

as well. There have been a lot of incidents where a malfunction or a technical error caused more

damage than benefit. Technology creates financial problems in families because most

technologies are very expensive to buy. Take the example of a television. In old times, a simple

TV had two dials – a volume control and a channel changer. On the contrary, in modern times, if

you need to have a TV, one always looks for something with extra add-ons and features such as a

satellite receiver and a DVD player. People long for those days when they used to have a family

gathering where they had a chat with each other and discussed their problems. Now-a-days, all

we care about is checking our emails and text messages without the true emotional bond and

relationship with each other.

Modern technology has taken away comfort from our lives and has introduced a new term

“stress” in our lives. In presence of modern technology, when exactly we rest and allow our

minds to turn off for a while? It has made things harder for us and distracted us. It feels like

machines own the world now-a-days. It is just an artificial enhancement of human powers.

Nuclear power has terrified and paralyzed its creators while machines have caused social chaos

and economic stagnation. People are getting unfit, less social and more frustrated. People rely on

cars and vehicles to travel small distances and hardly do any exercise which makes them more

vulnerable to diseases. People spend less time developing cooking skills and thus don’t get to

choose the best of food and therefore are deprived of eating healthy food. They spend the whole

day isolated in front of computers and televisions wrecking their social lives.

Just think of the various poisonous gases that are ruining our environment posing a threat to

human mankind as well as Mother Nature. People spend a lot of time using internet but hardly

apply any of the information gained to the real world. According to a survey, a growing number

of working women are suffering from burnout as a result of trying to balance work and home

commitments. Seven out of ten women said that the advent of mobile phones and email only

made their lives worse, leaving chaos and suffering in their lives. More than one in ten

complained that having their mobile phone meant that their life was no longer their own and that

having a mobile meant their employer regularly called them with out-of-hours work queries.

Kids are growing more violent and are having low academic achievements all because of their

addictive games on Xboxes, Play Stations etc. The growing technology also has damaging

effects in adults as well. In the business world more and more machinery and computers are

taking over our jobs. This ultimately means that as technology grows, more and more jobs will

be lost which might lead to a high level of unemployment.

Advancement in medical technology is probably the only good result from the never ending

advancement in technology. We have discovered new ways to fight and cure diseases and save

lives, but ironically we have also found new ways to kill ourselves with guns, nuclear weapons

etc.

"When the life of people is unmoral, and their relations are not based on love, but on egoism,

then all technical improvements, the increase of man's power over nature, steam, electricity, the

telegraph, every machine, gunpowder, and dynamite, produce the impression of dangerous toys

placed in the hands of children."— The diary of Leo Tolstoy.