Effects of Technology on Education
Airricka Carruthers
AIU-Online

Effect of Technology on Education
The rise of technology and the fall of the human mind, where will earth stand? The rise of technology has changed the way the children in today’s society are educated, and not in a good way. They are no longer required to use their brains, instead they are taught to memorize things and/or use an alternate source such as: computers and calculators. They don’t do their own work anymore, soon mankind as we know it will be replacing our thoughts to even breath for ourselves, as well as think for us, hence a “Matrix” way of life. Computers, today more than often parents and teachers are allowing children to use the internet, cutting and pasting their little lives away.
I read where there were studies conducted and it revealed that when a person reads information from a web site or other net-based resource, they are more susceptible to believing even things that are not factual and or valid, as appose to someone who is a skilled reader reading from hard copy sources who are more likely to be able to determine the validity of the information read. Children who spend less time in front of a computer and more time in books, newspapers, and magazines seem to have higher IQs than those computer Geeks. Children of none technology upbringing are skilled in critical reading and thinking and those “Geeks” aren’t. They the “Geeks “tend to be more technical and least likely to be critical thinkers, readers and yes, even less productive outside the four walls of technology. The science and technology of today and tomorrow are harmful to both the earth and our children. For example polluting our children’s minds by engulfing them with artificial toxic technology, threatens our existence. We are subject to extinction, the very species of man-kind. Like sonar that kills dolphins--the list goes on. Responsible use of science and technology can work to remedy the negative effects!
Children are allowed to use calculators in the classrooms, causing them to become dependent on yet another tool in this so-called “age of technology;” Prohibiting them to perform such simple task as adding and subtracting simple math calculations. Calculators are enabling them, so they will not be able to complete simple life skills. For example: counting back change/money, equating best buy for your money, percentage off sale pricing and per pound averages, as well as increasing or decreasing a recipe ingredient to conform for serving amounts.
When a young cashier in a local food store’s computerized register system went down due to a power failure, all operations of the store shut completely down and consumers were forced to either wait until the system came back up or leave their purchases for cancellation once power was restored, simply because she or other fellow co-workers and managers were unable to count back change or add purchases from/for the purchased total. The calculator is not at fault, because it could only compute what the cashier put in. The cashier was not at fault, but the failure of our educational system relying on a computer to teach our children, instead of that of an actual teacher.
We take advantage of the use of technology by using it first and far most, rather than educating and implementing the calculator and the computer as “Help” tools for they were intended. Whatever happened to the 3 R’s-Reading. wRiting, and aRithmatic? We have created a non-thinking, memory cached shell, totally dependent on the quick fix solution to Self Destruction! Not being under compensated, but over compensated to evolve through technology and dehumanizing mankind. There are ramifications to all negative encounters implemented by humans through technology. If you don’t believe it, ask yourself how hard it was for you to write this paper without the aid of technology. You may laugh at this, but it is very sad that we are not evolving. Let us not get caught up in a world of evolution, but start a revolution to take back our children and teach them to be thinkers, not memorizers, completing calculations and not using calculators, readers and writers and not plagiarizers, and most of all humans not technology!