Technology Advantages and Disadvantages

The impact in technology in our lives, today, is unmeasurable. We use technology every day, in different ways and we do it to harming up our lives or the society we live in. But what we are used to call modern technology, technically it is not as new as we think.

For instance, if we have a great smartphone today we can figure out that it is just an advancement of an ordinary mobile phone that we had years ago. Or look at a train today – we used to use steam powered trains and now we have electronic trains – just to get faster to some place. The technology evolves, but it finds old ways and old technologies to evolve.

We use technology every day, in order to fulfil specific tasks or specific interests. We have specific needs and we want to have faster technologies.

Advantages

• Improved communication – advanced communication technology tools;
• The wealth of information that is now available is astonishing. In theory, at least, having access to the internet means having access to almost all of the world’s knowledge. Increasingly we don’t even need to be sat at a desk to access the information either, as mobile devices become more and more powerful.

• Improved housing and lifestyle – most of the items that we have in our homes today are automated (if we compare with houses in the 70´s, 80´s, 90´s);
• Improved entertainment - we have more video games now, good music to listen and visual systems like smart TV's;
• Convenience in education – online and mobile education;
• Convenience of traveling – very important in our lives and in the business world;
• Changed the health industry – modern technology in hospitals, reducing the mistakes made by doctors and evolving the patients treatments.
•  Efficiency and productivity – helping businesses increasing production, saving time and money in the industry. Modern technology saves us lots of time, whether it’s our computer regulated cars driving us to work, washing-machines to do our laundry, or automated banking to allow us to pay by credit card, use internet banking, or get cash out from the ATM.

• Encourages innovation and creativity – it is very easy to start a job today (while at home).

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features and book-length manuals, and cars with dashboard systems worthy of the space shuttle.

Disadvantages

•  Increased loneliness – social isolation. Human relations are diminished in the virtual world. As online social networking increasingly replaces real face-to-face and physical contact.
• Human beings are less and less valued in the workplace as their roles are replaced by computers. Outsourcing has meant bigger profits for companies, but a decline in wages and conditions and more unemployment for ordinary workers, especially in Western nations.
• Issues of privacy have become huge, as it becomes increasingly difficult to control personal information in the digital and internet world.
• Intellectual property theft and piracy have made it more and more difficult for creative people to make any money from their output. Media can be digitalized and then distributed across the internet very easily and the process seems impossible to control.
• Modern societies are increasingly dependent on technology. So much so, that many basic services such as hospitals, power grids, airports, rail and road transport systems, and military defenses can now be knocked out by cyber attack or a catastrophic failure.
• We are increasingly becoming overwhelmed by the information overload that modern technology brings, as we are bombarded by irrelevant emails, sales telephone calls, text messages, internet advertising etc.
• Technology brings with it all sorts of enviromental problems. As well as machines and devices often being made from toxic, or non-biogradable materials, most technologies need a power source, which can often mean an increase in the consumption of electricity and fossil fuels.
• Technology has a general dehumanizing effect. As well as in the workplace, the military is increasingly becoming more technological. An example is pilotless drone aircraft, which can attack and kill people with the controller many thousands of miles away.

Bibliography:

http://www.ubiwhere.com/en/news/2015/05/25/technology-advantages-and-disadvantages/#.WO11lEV97cs