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Grace Huneycutt

Professor Campbell

UWRT 1103

04 December, 2019

The Yin and Yang of Technology

In the ideological belief subscribed to by Taoists, life is composed of yin and yang. This

belief states that nothing in life is wholly negative or positive, but rather a mixture that people

should strive to balance. Similarly, technology also has both positive and negative effects. While

many researchers attempt to prove that technology is either solely harmful or beneficial, when

analyzing all of the research, it becomes clear that when used responsibly, technology can have a

multitude of positive impacts on a person’s life. However, when the access to technological

devices starts to become misused, in the form to spending too much time on the device or feeling

a sense of codependence on technology, negative effects on mental health and attention become

present. Instead, it is best for people to study how they as an individual use technology and to

mindfully limit it in order to decrease the inadvertent misuse.

When electronic devices initially became part of the average American household, people

assumed that they would only make life easier. Today, smartphones are the most easily

accessible and therefore, the most utilized piece of technology for most Americans. Because of

their accessibility, they are commonly checked more often than necessary as people fear missing

an important notification. Unfortunately, this near-constant connection is beginning to cause

negative effects. In the last decade, researchers have begun to study the detriments of

technology, particularly in adolescents, which is defined as the stage of life between the ages of
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10 and 24. According to Alison Jones, Madeleine J. George, Michael A. Russell, Joy R. Piontak

and Candice L. Odgers, all of whom are renowned researchers for Duke University, the average

amount of time spent on technology is 2.3 hours for adolescents per day. The study also showed

that individuals who exceeded the average had increased rates of aggression, behavioral issues

such as lying and an incapability of self-regulation concerning technology, and a decreased

attention span, often leading to attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (Jones et al.). It is

unfortunate that technology is able to have such a detrimental impact on adolescents when it is

seemingly ubiquitous. The opportunity for people to access technology is always present, so

regulating one’s use of it becomes of the utmost importance in order to ensure that the

aforementioned negative effects are limited.

These difficulties, such as ADHD, abuse of time on technology, and decreased

information reception and retention are often reflected in the classroom, which ultimately causes

damage to students’ academic experience and grades. Unfortunately, as technology in the

classroom is becoming the new standard for education, researchers are now starting to believe

that the overuse of technology in the classroom and personal life can have a negative effect on

the student’s education. In a conversation between university researchers Andrew T. Kemp, John

Preston, C. Steven Page, Rebecca Harper, and Benita Dillard, all of whom are researchers and

professors at Georgia Regents University, with the exception of John Preston who is employed

by the Southern Polytechnic University, when technology is excessively used in the classroom,

students have a more difficult time with the long- term retention of the educational information

and often struggle sharing new ideas.

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One proposed solution to students struggling within the classroom because of technology

is to ensure the presence and consistency of in person interaction with teachers. One way to

accomplish this goal is by limiting the use of technology in the classroom and encouraging more

students to handwrite assignments. Additionally, teachers should be encouraged to limit the

technology which they implement in order to teach their lessons. According to the authors,

“Although technology can bring people together and make the sharing of information more rapid

and efficient, it is not until people have come together in a physical community that ideas and

positions coalesce and change happens” (Kemp et al.). This quote shows, while the online

teachers can share information with students more quickly, the students often do not remember

the information in the long run and cannot share their ideas connecting the subject material to a

bigger picture. Additionally, Kathleen Patrice Gulley, whose article was published by the

University of California- Sacramento, makes an argument that technology can “interfere with the

student’s need for human support that they receive from the teacher-based instruction” (Gulley).

This goes to prove that people need face to face interaction in order to better retain information.

Overall, the overuse of technology can lead to a negative impact on the educational process for

adolescent students by negatively affecting their behavior and attention span while also

decreasing their capability to absorb the information that they are taught.

Despite the negative effects of technology on students’ attention span, retention of

information, and behavior when used in excess, when properly implemented into the classroom

and private lives, technology can also supply a vast amount of benefits as well. In an article by

Donna Orem, the president of the National Association of Independent Schools, she highlights

that technology allows children to stay better connected with their friends and family members,
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particularly if the friends or family live a great distance away from the child (Orem). Forms of

social media are able to connect individuals together who are not able to meet in real life, and

when implemented safely, can lead to a larger support system for the person. This connectivity

allows adolescents to feel as if they have a greater community of support and provides the

opportunity for them to relate their feelings to individuals with whom they have more interests in

common. This creates the feeling of acceptance, which has positive impacts on the individual’s

mental health such as decreased rates of depression and anxiety. However, it is also crucial to

note that the positive mental affects only occur when the use of technology is at or below the

national average of 2.3 hours per day. When used in excess, technology can begin to have the

opposite effects on mental health, leading to increased rates of depression and in some cases,

suicide (Jones, et al.).

To further elaborate on the connection between the use of technology and adolescents’

feelings of acceptance, Drs. Yalda T. Uhls, Nicole B. Ellison, and Kaveri Subrahmanyam, state

that the interaction amongst peers on social media helps establish younger generations identity

and relationships between themselves. People are now able to express themselves and their ideas

through social media with greater freedom than ever before, while also finding individuals who

feel similarly, therefore creating connections through common ground, which previously could

not have been possible.

Because technology has both positive and negative effects, this leads to the question of

how does the individual spend enough time using technology to maximize the benefits without

overusing it to the point of harmfulness? In ​Connected and Content: Managing Healthy

Technology Use ​by David Ballard, who has received his doctorate in Psychology and was
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published by the American Psychological Association, he recommends certain techniques to curb

the amount of time spent on technology, without completely eliminating it from one’s life, which

in today’s world, would be nearly impossible. He recommends only using social media

interactively, which includes commenting and uploading posts, as opposed to mindlessly

scrolling through social media without comprehending the information which the person is

receiving. This prevents people from absent-mindedly scrolling through social media, which is

extremely time consuming and leads to a decrease in productivity, and therefore overall

satisfaction with life. Additionally, Ballard also recommends silencing one’s phone and placing

it out of reach, face down. To further this point, Hannah Nichols, who is an experienced medical

journalist who was published in “Medical News Today”, points out that “setting narrow limits on

screen time may not keep up with the myriad ways in which screens have become essential to

modern life” (qtd. in Nichols). Neither author completely vilanizes the use to technology

altogether. Rather, they discuss how setting small limits on technology can limit peoples’ use of

technology and aid in decreasing the occurrence of the negative effects. This prevents any

potential inadvertent distractions. People are notorious for intending to work diligently on a task

until their phone receives a notification. They will then check the notification and accidently

become engrossed by a post or a conversation on their phone, and accidentally start checking

other notifications, which completely removes their focus from the task at hand. Additionally,

according to Gloria Mark, a researcher of digital distractions at the University of California-

Irvine, it takes approximately 23 minutes for a person’s focus to completely reorient back to a

task after an interruption and people often feel that they have to rush in order to compensate for

the distraction time, leading to a decrease in the quality of their work. Adolescents are
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particularly subject to this struggle because they have largely not yet perfected their time

management skills and have grown up surrounded by technology, causing an increase in

dependance to constantly being technologically connected.

Similarly, Manoush Zomorodi, who received her bachelor's degree from Georgetown

University and is a researcher who chose, with the help of other statistical analysts, to study how

limiting technology can lead to an increase in productivity, noticed in her personal life that her

ideas were less creative when she was constantly using her smartphone. Because of this, she

created a study in which she gave the participants reminders and tips on how to limit their use of

technology, ranging from turning off notifications to simply placing the phone in the person’s

pocket rather than carrying it in their hand, which limits the accessibility to the phone. From the

20,000 people who participated in her study, 90% of the candidates saw a decrease in the use of

their phone (Zomorodi). This study shows that when technology is limited, but not completely

eliminated, people can experience an increase in creative thoughts and ideas. Additionally,

because this information was presented in a Ted Talk, which is reliant on technology for the

spread of ideas, this proves that technology can be beneficial for people to gather new research

and ideas which can potentially have a positive impact on their life; however, in order for these

brilliant ideas to first be conceived, it is helpful for people to separate themselves from

technology in order to allow for their brain to be more creative.

Overall, the use of technology can have both positive and negative effects. The positive

effects include being able to generate relationships with other people who share similar interests,

therefore allowing for a greater feeling of acceptance. However, the positive effects generally

only occur when the person spends 2.3 hours or less using technology per day. When used in
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excess, technology can cause feelings of depression, as well as behavioral issues and deficiencies

in their attention span. Today’s generation of adolescents most profoundly experience these

effects as they have never known life without being surrounded by easily-accessible, ubiquitous

technology. It is critical to balance the use of technology in the adolescent’s personal life as well

as in the classroom in order to allow them to access their full potential. This is an ongoing

research topic today that will hopefully continue to shed more light on how people can use

technology responsibly both in their personal and academic lives so that they can live life to the

fullest of their capabilities without being hindered by phones and computers.

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Works Cited

Ballard, David. “Connected and Content: Managing Healthy Technology Use.” ​American

Psychological Association,​ 2017, www.apa.org/helpcenter/connected-content. Accessed

14

Oct. 2019.

Gulley, Kathleen Patrice. “Pros and Cons of Computer Technology in the Classroom.” ​Northern

Arizona University​, 2003. Accessed 15 Oct. 2019.

Jones, Alison, et al. “Concurrent and Subsequent Associations between Daily Digital

Technology

Use and High-Risk Adolescents' Mental Health Symptoms.” ​Global Academics​, 3 May

201. https://today.duke.edu/2017/05/more-technology-use-linked-mental-health-issues-

risk-adolescents. Accessed 13 Oct. 2019.

Kemp, Andrew T, et al. “Technology and Teaching: A Conversation among Faculty Regarding

the

Pros and Cons of Technology.” ​The Qualitative Report​, vol. 19, no. 3, ser. 2, 20 Jan.

2014,

pp. 1–23. ​2​. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1284&context=tqr.

Accessed 15 Oct. 2019.

Mark , Gloria. “The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress.” ​The University of

California- Irvine​, www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/chi08-mark.pdf. Accessed 2 Dec. 2019.

Nichols, Hannah. “How Modern Life Affects Our Physical and Mental Health.” ​Medical News

Today​, 3 July 2017, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318230.php#1. Accessed 13

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Oct. 2019.

Orem, Donna. “How Does Technology Affect Teen Health and Well-Being?” ​NAIS,​ National

Association of Independent Schools, 18 Sept. 2017,

www.nais.org/learn/independent-ideas/september-2017/how-does-technology-affect-teen

-h

ealth-and-well-being/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2019.

Uhls, Yalda T, et al. “Benefits and Costs of Social Media in Adolescence.” ​American

Academy of Pediatrics News and Journals​, vol. 140, no. 2, Nov. 2017, pp. 67–72.,

doi:10.1542/peds.2016-1758E. Accessed 15 Oct. 2019.

Zomorodi, Manoush. “How Boredom Can Lead to Your Most Brilliant Ideas.” ​TED​, April 2017,

https://www.ted.com/talks/manoush_zomorodi_how_boredom_can_lead_to_your_most_

br

Illiant_ideas. Accessed 15 Oct. 2019.