Technology and Its Effects on People

Today, technology is all around us. It doesn't matter where you are, or what you are doing there is a good chance that you are surrounded by some sort of technology possibly without you even knowing it. In 2011 I am confident in saying almost everyone around you is using some sort of technology. It can either be an IPod, Iphone, cell phone or computer. Ruth Marcus the author of the article Cyberspace Dunderheads has a very strong opinion along with technology writer Nicholas Carr on how technology over the years has transformed and advanced the way our minds pick up information and how that information is presented to us. Amy Goldwasser, the author of What's the matter with kids today? Believes that a typical teenagers life revolves around cell phones, iPods, and the internet. She states in her article "We're afraid our kids know things we don't." teens today have access to everything on the internet unless it has a parental lock on it, and texting to kids is more efficient that a phone conversation. A world without technology almost seems unimaginable and a bit thick but what about when it begins contaminating our brains with that feeling of "an alcoholic reaching for the bottle, toward the BlackBerry," at that point it has come too far.
Ruth Marcus compares her thoughts with the thoughts of Nicholas Carr throughout her article Cyberspace Dunderheads. Carr believes that technology is changing everything around us, and in a sense making us dumber and having us soley rely on technology. Ruth believes that technology allows her to work faster and more efficiently. It allows her to have an "alt tab, efficiency between work and family," while also renewing and making new relationships. The technology around us can be quite beneficiary but technology can also take a toll including physically. The director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, Nora Volkow told the New York Times "The technology is re-wiring our brains," it’s slowly but surely affecting us in many ways including relationships. This new era of virtual communications is taking a toll on friendships and personalities. Today, kids prefer texting a friend, over calling them, "it's more efficient". The problem with texting is the disablement to discern tone and articulation which enhances the bare possibility of confusion and cross purposes. Marcus stated that “The University of Michigan found that college students today are about 40 percent lower in empathy, measured by standard personality tests."
In the article What's the matter with kids today? by Amy Goldwasser the main focus is teenagers. Goldwasser stereotypes teenagers as being the most frequent users of the web, and then continues to write about how teenagers in modern day society "read and write for fun" as if it’s only a small part of their social life. In the article Goldwasser does often speak negatively about the internet and what it has done to teenagers she states "the internet has turned kids into honest documentarians of their own life- reporters embedded in their homes, their schools, and own heads. Goldwasser reveals that she too is afraid that kids today know more than most adults do, and that "kids are responsible for every enduring consumer cultural phenomenon". A NEA report concluded that literary reading took a massive declining the same period of rising internet use. The NEA report also did a survey on a group of teenagers and found that "the average teen chooses to spend an average of 16.7 hours a week reading and writing online". Amy Goldwasser expresses what changes have happened in roughly the same time that the use of the internet rose stating "the corollary is weak, this has as well been a period of rising franchise of frozen yogurt that doesn’t taste like frozen yogurt, of global warming, of declining rated of pregnancy and illicit drug use among teenagers and of girls sweeping the country’s most prestigious high school science competition for the first time." All these changes came for the best and worst, and as Goldwasser talks negatively of the impacts the internet has had on our youth generation she also talks the positive that has come out of the internet. She states “years from now thank the internet for making him or her a writer and a thinker," she refers to teenagers having the chance to become a great voice in America in the future. Goldwasser believes that educators should incorporate the internet as an educational tool instead of “punishing with pop quizzes and suspicion." The internet shouldn't stereotype its users the truth is anyone can make a profit off the internet, regardless of your age.
The two authors Ruth Marcus and Amy Goldwasser have very similar points of views, and very diverse points of views on the subject technology. In Marcus article she emphasizes more on good ways that technology has impacted her life, and how she has learned to grow with the new age opposed to Goldwasser who addresses mostly teenagers in her article and how internet has in a sense brainwashed today’s youth into spending hours staring at a screen instead of reading a book or writing a letter. Marcus believes that technology has helped her work more efficiently and opened opportunities for her to reconnect with long lost relationships. Goldwasser believes that kids today don’t read or write, and have only one thing on their mind which in their IPods. The two authors come together with some similarities the subject for instance Marcus believes that "a modern child’s existence is all digital all the time," and that their brains are wired to have constant stimulation around them. Goldswasser main focus in kids brains deteriorating from excess use of the internet stating that "regularly often late at night, they're generating a body of intimate written work. We're afraid our kids know things we don't". Marcus and Goldwasser both believe that the internet can benefits either now in the present or some time along the future, and they also agree that excess amounts of the internet can be physically and mentally damaging.
In conclusion Ruth Marcus and Amy Goldwasser wrote these two articles to explain to society the massive impact of technology. Today, people can greatly benefit from technology and what it offers, or for some it can a challenge to adapt too. We can learn to accept it, take advantage of it, or use it in moderation. Technology takes us away from reality and what's going on around us. It can stuff up so much, but we trust it like a human. Technology has changed our lives in ways that are too numerous to count. Our work is easier and more productive. We have more leisure time than ever before. The only problem that we face is using technology is moderation. The problem with America is we do not understand the true meaning of moderation. The technology that is around us every day is not going anywhere; it is only dispersing and growing rapidly. We must learn to accept it and control our own personal use of it.