Brad Paisley once crooned ‘When you got my kind of stats, it’s hard to get a date. But I grow another foot, and I lose a bunch of weight every time I log in.’ While you may dismiss this as just another trivial pop song, it nevertheless captures the modern reality that technological knowledge has not just enabled Man to meet his needs, but to master and manipulate the world around him for his own benefit. While many traditionalists may criticize these radical new uses of technology as pursuing selfish personal improvements, many urbanites would find these necessary for their advancement in society. In my opinion, the various forms of technology have become imperative in addressing our needs more than our desires.

First and foremost, it is crucial to acknowledge that modern technology has addressed our most basic need for sustenance – food and water. Throughout history, scientific and technological advances have greatly impacted the agriculture industry. Scientists and researches have been at work to address the issue of scarcity of food and it is genetic modification that has allowed us to improve crop varieties by adding genes from other species. One successful application is the development of a corn hybrid, Bt corn, that is resistant to certain insect pests because of the addition of a gene from a natural soil bacterium. As a staple in the diets of both livestock and humans alike, the arrival of Bt corn in 1996 was very significant because it promised better production yield and easier harvests. Water purification technologies like Reverse Osmosis (RO) have also enabled Man to optimize the usage of scarce resources that are essential to the survival of our kind, by making available clean water to a larger community of people. Therefore, the developments in modern technology have indeed played a crucial role in addressing a dire need for more food and clean water for countries all over the world.

In addition, modern technology has like our world, evolved to meet the need for efficiency in our increasingly globalized world. Technology can result in greater productivity and output as it increases the efficiency of the worker. There is now, more than ever, the need for economies and industries need to operate in the most cost-efficient manner in order to remain competitive in our modern world. It is only by being productive will countries be able to survive and meet the needs of their citizens and this is where technology plays a vital role. Technological hardware, such as computer technology, along with its software enhances work efficiency as information can be processed and analysed at a faster rate. Painstaking manual tasks such as calculations and can now be done with greater accuracy and at a faster speed, resulting in higher productivity rates. This, in turn, allows markets to run more smoothly and gives countries the ability to compete on an international level to meet the needs of the people on the ground, by improving economic productivity. Hence, we can once again see that technology has evolved to address the similarly evolving needs of people.

Also, technology can be said to help us to keep in touch with loved ones and friends and improve the quality of our social life. While this may not have been a very prominent need in the past, it is currently growing in significance as more and more children are going overseas to pursue further education and spending long periods of time away from their families. It is only with the recent wave of globalization that living overseas has become so common and there is now a need for individuals to make use of technology to stay connected. Communication technology’s trademark is in its ability to transcend space and time at hyper speeds. Unlike previous times when children lived and worked in close proximity to their families, the phenomenon of globalization is forcing individuals out of their homelands in search of work and education. Thus, technological works such as network communications and mobile communications are becoming increasingly important to the individual. In this way, relations can be maintained online regardless of time zones and borders and deals with the individuals need for support and encouragement, especially in unfamiliar environments.

However, detractors against such technology may point to the widespread occurrence of individuals orchestrating everything on their social networking pages as a means of self-promotion as an aspect where technology has transformed to address our desires more than our needs. Users of Facebook, for example, may sometimes be driven to actively prune their profiles of unflattering words, ‘untag’ unflattering photos or even ‘unfriend’ unflattering friends. While they may argue that many youths now face the compulsion to reflect to the world a more perfect image of themselves to gain social standing based on personal agenda, it may signal a desperate cry to satisfy their inner need for attention. These acts may simply be a reflection for the need to feel secure and accepted within their social circles, and may point to an even more significant need to feel loved. Hence, technology has changed to suit the needs of the people in the present, though this may appear frivolous and unnecessary to those who grew up in the past.

In conclusion, not only does modern technology address our most basic needs, it has evolved rapidly to meet the needs of the modern world, which is becoming increasingly globalized. While there may have been little of these needs in the past, we must admit that the world has quickly evolved and there are many new challenges that the people of the 21st century have to face. Their needs, like the world, have transformed over time, but are still met by technology. Therefore, in my opinion, modern technology addresses our needs more than our desires.