Max Levin

Jennifer Rodrick

ENGL 115

5 December 2017

A Pathway to Destruction (Revised)

Social media is not about the exploitation of technology but service to community.

Simon Mainwaring said this in the preface of one of his books. Clearly he had never actually

used social media in his life or seen how other people have used it. Social media and technology

as a whole, decimate identity not only physically, but mentally as well due to the mental

degrading that happens on the internet, like bullying, and the physical damage it causes to the

brain, like aneurysms that burst due to certain conditions caused by technology we use every

day. Technology is also ruining education causing delays due to malfunctioning computers, and

in some cases, being just plain unnecessary like in math.

Although I am anti-tech, I do recognize that there are technological advancements in the

world. We, as a society, are told constantly that the technology in the world will only make life

easier and that the world is better for it. The argument made by most, is that the world needs

these advancements to push on through time, and there are a lot of positives of technology.

Some of my favorite time wasters and activities are technological advancements, including

Netflix and every other television streaming site. The majority of what we as a society love, are

technological advances. These are positives of our world currently and I freely admit that to the

opposition. The supporters of technological advance at Use of Technology News claim that the

easy and affordable communications brought about by smart phones and computers has

simplified life exponentially, and that is true for most cases. I firmly believe life is different with
the invention of technology and the incorporation of it into our lives. It has made it so much

easier to interact and work. Karenhka Ramey, the author of Use of Technologys news section,

when referring to the advantages created by the efficiency of the technology in todays world,

states clearly, Lets take a simple example of a bakery using technology. If a bakery automates

its production line and installs temperature sensors and cooling facilities, it will deliver quality

products in time (Ramey). Technology has its positives and everyone knows it, but in order for

these positives to be realized, everyone who connects to the internet or social media has to use it

right.

However, the next step to this is recognizing that not everyone does use the web and the

online world properly. This fact is in opposition with the supporters of the technology of today

and the reason is because the world of technology is so vast that anyone can do literally anything

on it. That means that even if there were endless ways to keep people from misusing social

media and the proof of that comes from all the cyberbullying awareness advertisements and

public service announcements that used to be on and still are on all the time. The video that you

see beloe has the key components of a cyberbullying ad-campaign. It has a main point and an

emotional connection to that point to draw the audience in. A girl gets up to give a speech and

ends up spouting horrific and degrading nonsense about a girl who we see in the video

periodically. The point of course, is that the anonymity of the internet has given all the people

who are too afraid to say anything out loud, an avenue for their torture and harassment. As you

can see this all happens without anyones ability to stop it due to the online access that everyone

has. The way people access the internet is what makes the world go round, that is also what

makes it so dangerous to be around is that there are suicides every year from little guy who gets

bullied by the big guy, who is only big due to the anonymity of it all. Sure it makes them
seem big and strong when no one knows who they actually are. I could go online and bully

someone right now and no one would ever know who I am or what I look like. The problems

outweigh the advantages and the problems with the internet weigh so heavily on the people it

affects, which, in this world, is everyone. This is why I think that a lot of the time it is better

NOT to advance, that way the people that go around making life difficult for others have to do it

in person and get caught and most likely stood up to by others.

The world seems to intentionally focus on the good, although there is so much, other than

bullying, that is horrible, like how the whole thing about technology in our world is that it can

even cause physical damage to the body, especially the brain. The brain can only take so much

and the stimulations that the technology of today provides is already too much for our brains.

What do I mean by too much for our brains? Its really quite simple: It starts with the blood

vessels in the brain. Every time something damaging occurs, these vessels get weaker. The wall

of the vessel starts to wither with each wave of stress to the brain. The blood starts to become a

dangerous and potentially harmful substance. This is called an aneurysm. At any point, a

random stimulation could cause a stress on the brain, rupturing this aneurysm, pouring blood into

the cerebral cortex. This is what a cell phone and social media can cause. The light of a cell

phone is on the ultraviolet spectrum, which is why it is recommended for one to not use their cell

phone right before bed. The eyes, which are just receptors for the brain, need to adjust to the

dark, and they cannot do that when the phone light is impeding that process. This could cause a

rupture, or burst, of the subarachnoid hemorrhage. The following hours will be spent in surgery,

but this where it gets even worse. The use of technology and looking at screens all the time after

surgery, could actually impede or even stop completely the healing process. Naif Alotaibi is a

researcher and writer for World Neurosurgery, who did an experiment on such cases, concluding,
When the brain is vulnerable it is the absolute worst time to do anything on a cell phone. It is

damaging to the nerves and the substructures in areas of the cerebral cortex (Alotaibi). Along

with that is the lost rest that occurs due to the severity of the addiction and obsession with

technology. Rest is number one when it comes to recovery. In addition, a research project was

done on the overall health conditions of children, preteens, and teenagers. In this project, there

was a hypothesis that, For children, total media consumption predicted poor health while for

preteens specific technology uses, including video gaming and electronic communication,

predicted ill-being. For teenagers, nearly every type of technological activity predicted poor

health (Rosen). This research posits the idea that we are at our most vulnerable for health

defects at young ages, but more specifically, at our toddler and teenage years. The reasoning

behind this is that as children, we are more impressionable and we take things in that become

habits for life. However, as teenagers, the chance of addiction is higher, meaning, if I like a

game as a preteen, I may outgrow that, but the chances are higher that as a teen, I may end up

playing said game for many years if not forever. This research study may change the way

parents handle the technology their kids are using, which brings me to my conclusion.

Technology is unavoidable in our lives, now more than ever, but that just means we have

to try extra hard as a society to keep away from the nasty habits of the internet. The obstacles

that stand in our way will continue to stand there, without a possibility of forcing our way

through. There will seem to be no way around them either, but as time goes on, there will

appear, a way under them. There will return a time where kids arent always looking at their

phones or glued to a video game screen. When that happens, well, we will probably be long

dead but one can only hope that it will change the world for the better.
 Works Cited

Alotaibi, Naif. The Use of Social Media Communications in Brain Aneurysms and

Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: A Mixed-Method Analysis. World Neurosurgery, vol. 98.

2017, pp. 456-462.

Brain Aneurysm - Topic Overview. WebMD. 26 September 2017.

 https://www.webmd.com/brain/tc/brain-aneurysm-topic-overview#1.

Ramey, Karenhka. Pros and Cons of Using Technology. Use of Technology,

https://www.useoftechnology.com/pros-cons-technology/. 26 September 2017.

Rosen, L.D. Media and Technology Use Predicts Ill-being among Children, Preteens and

Teenagers Independent of the Negative Health Impacts of Exercise and Eating Habits.

Computers in Human Behavior. Vol. 35, 2014.

Talent Show- Cyberbullying Prevention Commercial. YouTube. 27 September2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdQBurXQOeQ.