Technology In Human civilization

Human civilization has appeared to be moving forward with an ever-increasing vigor of technological and intellectual advancement. Technology has made our lives much easier, faster and productive than ever before, and it continues to do so by the passage of time. Sadly, in spite of all the advancements we are achieving with the help of technology, our society doesn’t seem to be happy and satisfied.

If we look for an answer to “what has technology given us”, we’ll find thousands of inventions that technology has bestowed upon human beings. Technology enriched our view by condensing the world into a small village. We complete a month-long travel of five hundred years ago in just five hours by dint of communication technology. The technology-driven factories have accelerated the average production with a comparatively safer environment. Medical technology enriched our hope of living. From the small electronic devices of our daily use to the wide range of architectural machineries to the technologies of rocket science, there is no way left in our lives in which we are not being assisted by technology. In brief, technological advancement covers all the aspects of our lives so enormously that, it revolutionarily changed the way our forefathers thought and lived.

Studies show that, by the passing of time, technology is turning out to be a possible threat to human society. Our society has become technology-driven nowadays. Sydney J. Harris perfectly stated, “The real danger is not that computer will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers” (ButterPatil 2017). A 2010 Kaiser Foundation survey shows that, the children of elementary age spend, on average, 7.5 hours a day on entertainment devices (Rowan 2013). Parents are not giving time to their children, and thus depriving them from parenting essential for a child’s physical and psychological growth. While increasing connection in virtual world, people are losing hold of the basic root of a society, i.e. sociability. Children are being exposed to moral and ethical degradation more than ever before due to the easy access to internet. Most alarmingly, over-dependence to technological devices causes long-term damage to operator’s health. The list will keep growing if continued.

A serious question has thus arisen among contemporary intellect. What should be the possible solution to this apparent dilemma of technology? If we continue our dependence to technology in this way, it will not take long to destroy our distinctive nature as an intellectual social species. On the other hand, if we fully reject the use technology, we’ll have to go back to a society of our forefathers who lived thousands of years ago.

Technology has always been used for two purposes; betterment and destruction. On one hand, technology widened our knowledge about the universe around us, from galaxies to subatomic particles; on the other hand, this same technology invented the deadly weapons of destruction. We are rapidly advancing in our knowledge about newer technologies. In order to keep ourselves safe from all possible technological threats, all we have to do is “to be wise in the use of technology”.

In brief, we’ll welcome all the newer technologies, unless they are proved to be possible threats to our peaceful existence. The use of technology must be restricted under a certain legal and ethical code that will check all the threatening uses of technology. This way, our society can ensure a peaceful co-existence with technology.

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