Technology Has Negatively Affected Our Lives

Technology is something that we can’t live without in this fast paced world. We use it to help us get through our everyday tasks and activities. It has helped change our lives by making everything easier to access and simple. It has also affected our social and physical life in many ways. In the essays “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era,” by Restak and “The Limits of Friendship,” by Konnikova, they both discussed the impact of technology on us. Although technology has greatly helped with the improvement of our lives, it has also negatively impacted us because it caused us to lose face to face interactions and acts as a distraction in our daily life. With the influence of technology, the way in which we interact with one another
Being online has also became a way of life. We can do a lot of things online. For instance, we can talk to our friends, order food and shop online. All these benefits has only made us to stay inside more and be isolated from the world outside. One might think that online communication helps to improve our social skills, but ironically, our social skills can start to deteriorate while communicating online constantly. “One concern, though, is that some social skills may not develop as effectively when so many interactions exist online.” (Konnikova). I agree with what Konnikova said because talking online and in person is a completely different experience. When talking online, there is more time to think and revise on what we are going to say, but in person there is not much time to think too deeply into what we’re going to say. Also the fact that we don’t physically see the other person’s expression can cause it harder to understand the other person’s true feelings when interacting behind a
When we use technology, our mind goes to a different world. “[…] through technology, anyone at any given moment is immediately available “here” and “there” lose their distinctive meaning” (Restak). What Restak meant by this is that with technology, we can be in different places mentally. For instance, we can be talking to someone in front of us, but texting to someone in another country. This kind of act can be also known as multitasking. With the aid of technology, multitasking has become the solution to complete more task at a time. However, we are not evolved to multitask. “[…] the brain has certain limits that we must accept” (Restak). We have the ability to change what we do, but we can’t change what is already made. Pushing through our limits can cause mistakes and put us in dangerous situations. One example would be texting and driving. When we text and drive, we are putting ourselves and the lives of others in danger. There are already a lot of distractions on the road and added on with texting, our brain simply can’t function properly because it has limits on what it can