“Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.” Over the past decade technology has advanced to greater heights than ever before. Doing research that once took days of reading books and studying in the local library with every other student, now can be completed with a simple Google search in the comfort of your own home. In todays current society, everyone seems to spend a vast majority of their time browsing the internet, viewing the media, or using any other electronic device that can provide a source of entertainment. Technology has invaded our entire lives and has become something that almost everybody uses and is nearly unavoidable. The matter at hand is will the rate our technology advances be in favor of society or will be bring its eventual downfall? The fact of the matter is, at the current accelerating rate that technology is growing is will affect us negatively.

One of the main reasons technology is becoming a detriment in this generation is obsession. There are many of those who are already obsessed with todays technology. Now, according Susan Maushart, a mother of three teenagers says her children “inhabit” the media. Mrs. Maushart says “Did I say they do their schoolwork like that? Correction. They do their life like that.”(Maushart, Winter) This statement is true for for a good portion of society. Almost everything done has to be done with or includes some form of technology in a certain way. Susan says that she knows for a fact her children would choose voluntarily choose technology over food, water and hair products. (Maushart, Winter) Everywhere they go they take technology with them, it’s the last thing they’ll forget to take. Even Susan admits sneaking her iPhone into the toilet. (Maushart, Winter) This new found obsession with technology has gone to such an extreme that cellphones or any other source of electronic media is the last thing they’re occupied with during the night and the first thing checked in the morning. This obsession has been forming dependency issues with those who use them the most. Any sort of obsession that distracts from the real world is not good, and one that can be easily spread and is being spread to todays entire society is even worse.
On the topic of distractions from the real world, technology can thrust society out of the real world and into one that is virtual. For example, In the book Fahrenheit 451, Mildred, a main character in the book is completely obsessed and totally consumed by technology. She submerges herself it, losing touch with reality and living a totally meaningless life. She claims that her only family in life are the T.V. “families” on the soap operas she watches. (Bradbury, Fahrenheit) The statement she makes proves that she has been engulfed by the television and with a virtual family that in reality doesn't exist. At one point in the story, Mildred becomes mute and completely refuses to talk about those who’ve died and would rather speak of the people and pretty colors on the T.V. “My ‘family’ is people. They tell me things: I laugh, they laugh! And the colors!” she states. (Bradbury, Fahrenheit) From the text it can be inferred that Mildred will only accept and believe in anything that appears on the television. In correlation to real life Susan Maushart states, she “watched and worried as [their] media began to function as a force field separating my children from what my son, only half ironically called RL (Real Life) “(Maushart, Winter) Albeit Fahrenheit 541 is an exaggerated version of Susan’s issues, it’s not far fetched in terms of a potential reality, in fact it’s quite possible in todays society for those to have such a disconnect from reality to be completely separated from reality and getting lost in this virtual world. Such a disconnect from reality Electronic media can make a negative impact in society in its entirety.

Furthermore, technology is being a major detriment when it comes to civilizations lack of knowledge and information retention. As stated by Nicholas, what the internet seems to be doing to our knowledge capabilities are “chipping away [our] capacity for concentration and contemplation.” (Google, Carr) This statement is precise because the internet not only supply the user with knowledge on thought but also changes the users way of thought as well. Nicholas implies with the internet doing this to him his mind now “expects to take in information the way the net distributes it,” (Carr, Google) which is what the internet is causing to the rest of society. For the words of Nicholas, “research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes” and “the deep reading that used to come naturally has now become a struggle.”(Carr, Google) This is caused by the time spent on the internet, gathering only the information that you need at speeds that are almost instantaneous, the struggle to read thought long pieces of writing and gathering the information independently becomes more of a struggle as a result of this. “Several recent studies show that young people tend to use home computers for entertainment, not learning, and that this could hurt school performance…” (Carr, Google) The distractions that technology cause affects the students’ knowledge retention because rather than concentrating on what they're learning, they worry about when they'll be able to use their cellphone again. As if society today isn't already completely dependent on technology for a vast majority of information, it will soon encompass the entire spectrum, nullifying our knowledge retention capabilities leaving us with complete dependency on technology.

Not to mention, many claim that with the increased use of technology it will ultimately benefit all of humanity. Cal State L.A. psychology professor Kaveri Subrahmanyam boldly states
“the majority of kids use [social networking] in ways that don’t jeopardize their well- being” (Healy, Teenage), but in reality their welling being can potentially be in jeopardy from cyberbullying, identity theft and regular interactive distractions imposed on kids with the use of social networking. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “half of students from 8 to
18 are using the internet, watching T.V. or using some other form of media either ‘most’
(31 percent) or ‘some’ (25 percent) of the time they are doing homework.” (Richtell,
Growing) Amori Yee Mikami says that the use of social networking sites by adolescents are strictly to talk to family, friends as apposed to speaking with random strangers across the nation, (Healy, Teenage) but the main issue with this statement is that adolescents do in fact talk with strangers on social networking sites in hopes to befriend someone thats fairly close to your location with the intent of making a friend. Which results in them meeting up with a complete stranger, not knowing who they are exactly, not knowing if the image the stranger portrayed is actually who he/she said to be. This could be extremely dangerous during the wrong situation if in the wrong situation. Also many claim that with the use of technology, things will get accomplished easier and faster than ever before, but as said previously, they will develop a dependency on technology and basic tasks will become increasingly difficult without technology as time goes on. There is no denying that technology does bring positives in the short run but in the long run they all have their side effects that can become increasingly dangerous to society.

As it has been made clear, as technology evolves, it damages today society more by creating technological obsession, lack of knowledge, and creates distracted and live in a virtual world and there is so much evidence to support this, that there should be no doubt that it is true. Though technology creates some positive aspects of todays society, it cannot outweigh the negative issues that it currently presents. the real question at hands is, should society let technology worsen these challenges or should changes be made before everyone is truly affected, it’s already been shown that life can exist and thrive without technology by those who lived before it. If past generations could live without technology than so can todays society.

Citations:
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine Books, 1953. Print.

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?." The Atlantic. N.p., 1 07 2008. Web. 2/19/2014.

Healy, Melissa. "Teenage Social Media Butterflies May not Be Such a Bad Idea." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 18 May 2010. Web. 16 Mar 2014.

Maushart, Susan. "The Winter of Our Disconnect." . Penguin Group (USA) Inc., n.d. Web. 16 Mar 2014.

Richtell, Matt. "Growing up Digital, Wired for Distraction."New York Times. N.p., 21 11 2010. Web. 16 Mar 2014.