Society vs. Technology
How phones, the internet and social media shape the way students think, learn and talk to each other, for better and worse.
Today, in the 21st century, technology is such a big part of our lives. What people don’t realize is what technology does to our brains and how it affects our education. Technology can affect us in either a positive or negative way. Some people could say it affects us in more of a negative than positive way.
Technology definitely changes the way children think and can also alter the actual wiring of the brain. Not only that, it even changes the way children feel. When children do not have access to technology, they pick up emotions better. Technology doesn’t only change the brain and feelings. A major thing that it does is it puts privacy and safety at risk; they unwittingly share info online and a lot of cyber bullying takes place. Some people get so bullied to the point they get so depressed to the point where the students give up and stop caring about school. Students get so distracted by their phones and some may even cheat, which isn’t letting them learn anything. Jayce Hardy, 12th grade, says “Even though he uses his phone mostly for texting, he usually uses technology once a day during school, but outside he uses it all the time for school work.”
Technology has come a long way and has changed so many things. Jessalyn Norris, 8th grade, says “She doesn’t use technology much for school, but she uses too much technology for social media.” Dr. Katherine McKnight says in the article Top 12 Ways Technology Changed Learning, “Communication evolution has definitely changed in a major way. Interviews, meeting new people, even having conversations with your friends has gotten to the point where they can all do it through some electronic and not have to do it face to face. No more note passing either, but that does not mean that the students still aren’t talking about the teacher or another person in class because the students are most likely just texting to each other. Technology separates individuals from reality.”
Technology doesn’t only have all negative sides to it, there are also positive sides, too. William McCoy says in his article Positive Effects on Education, “When students have access to the internet or any type of technology, they can do so much. Research for a class, educational games, distant education, web seminars, seeing everything that’s going on in the real world is all so helpful and technology is what makes all of it possible.” “I believe all this new technology is a great thing to help our students increase their knowledge everyday at school,” said Mr. Baad, the media specialist at MHS.
It all affects us in some type of way, even if it is good or bad, it still usually affects us in a more positive way than anything else. If we didn’t have any of this technology, our education would not be where it is today and we wouldn’t have all the things that help us learn the things we need to know in such an easy way.
What the research says
Later research has tried to measure the phone distraction described here instead of relying on opinion. A 2020 study (arXiv:2004.01392) followed 72 university students in the SmartUnitn project, combining logs of the social media apps on their phones with time diaries and comparing them with their credits and grades. The results showed a negative impact of social media use on academic work, with different patterns of influence, and the authors call for controlling smartphone use in academic settings. It is a small sample of college students, but it matches the worries raised above.
