The Dark Consequences of Technology

The Dark Consequences of Technology

By: Darren Moskito

English 3U

February, 16th 2015

   Technology is everywhere and there is no way of avoiding it. In most cases, avoiding technology is not ideal due to its benefits and the positive impact on our daily lives. Sometimes technology goes beyond our daily needs and then becomes our source of entertainment. This can lead to many dark consequences of embracing technology. It can become very addictive, it is a large distraction, and causes corruption in societies.                  

   First of all, technology can become addictive. Since technology is a source of entertainment, people could watch a whole season of their favourite show in one day without any physical activities. This can go on for days and on because of addiction. With the lack of physical activities they become vulnerable to many health issues such as obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and many more types of health problems. Next, just like any addiction it can be difficult to overcome that addiction. For some people, if their piece of technology either a phone or computer gets taken away from them, they feel as if their life is over. In other words, it can lead to depression, to an extreme of suicidal thoughts and other mental illnesses. Not only does technology cause physical and mental illness, but finally it takes away time from others. When people become addicted to things in this case being addicted technology, they invest so much time and focus into that one thing. Their thought of others and to do other things becomes scarce. Even though there are social media it is still not the same as a personal conversation because emotion is hard to achieve just through reading texts. It is easy to perceive that technology causes health issues, mental illnesses and takes time away from others because of addiction but, technology can be very distracting as well.

   Secondly, technology is a very large distraction. Many people have the urge to check their emails, texts or phone calls while doing other things at the same time. This can be very fatal specially at times where there full attention is needed in order to do what they have to do safely. Driving is a very critical example. Due to technology, specifically cell phones being a distraction, it has caused many accidents and deaths in our society. Furthermore, distraction because of technology has also hurt social interaction within a group of friends. When a group of friends decide to meet up with each other they should not be on their phones and messaging other people. That is how bad it has become because of their phones and therefore destroying social interaction and even friendship. Another is that phones distract people from doing more important things. When people are stuck, puzzled or frustrated they tend to abandon their task and end up distracted on their phones or computers. This affects many teens in particular because they easily prefer entertainment than school work. Consequently, receive low marks on their report cards or even fail. It is clear that technology causes accidents, hurts social interaction and affects school grades because it is a distraction though, technology can corrupt society's also.