Technology and People

ENGLISH 68
November 9, 2010
Final Draft
PRESENTING THE MODERN TECHNOLOGY Technology is not something that one can ignore, as it is being developed all the time around us, and is included everyday of our lives. Technology shapes the world and has both positive and negative effects. Technology has made huge advancements in society. People can save more time, receive better education, faster communication, advance health services, as well as many other benefits. However, modern technology might cause problems too. In “The Back draft of Technology” Stephanie Alaimo and Mark Koester discuss many disadvantages of modern technology in society. They state that because of the increasing use modern technology, a growing number of people are observing more problems now more than ever. Problems such as unemployment, losing human interaction, bad economy, and so much more than one can imagine are bad effects of advance technology. The tone of the essay is not optimistic on mechanization in every area of life. Alaimo and Koester give warning to their readers about negative causes and effects of mechanization at present time and also in the future. Alaimo and Koester are correct. Although technology helps human beings to adapt an easier way of life, in the long term it might not be as helpful as people realize, and it could bring too many problems such as unfair competition, unemployment, and complex life for society. Technology can eliminate competition or make competition unfair. For example, when A Company produces something and B Company in another country produces the same item as well, they must struggle for their market. Imagine the B Company purchases more equipment that will cut the number of workers needed and improve production, and then they can reduce the price of their product. If A Company doesn't follow their way, then they could be forced out of business. In this case the A Company is forced to buying the machines, so they can stay in business. In fact, bigger companies are going to take advantages of technology in order to take over the market from the smaller ones. However, if smaller company is not able to make these changes then they are out of business, and since then the survivor company will be able to change back their prices and qualities of products without being worried about the market. There are so many advantages from highly developed technology; also there are great deals of disadvantages from them. Some people think that technology has made life easier and more convenient while others think that technology has made life more complex and stressful. For example, many customers have had great experiences with self checkout machines. Most customers like the experience. They feel that it is quicker. Most of the time this is true, and the lines tend to be shorter and they save more time. People think it is faster because of a psychological effect. This is because they are doing the work themselves, so they feel they are going faster. However, it is poor customer service that they have to do all the work themselves. In other word, they are taking over people job without getting or paying less on their items. In addition, computers, robots and machines also can easily break and most of the time people don’t know how to fix them. Alaimo and Koester point that the most harmful effect of modern technology is to have society with growing numbers of unemployment. As technology is developing, robots and machines are taking over many jobs and people are losing their jobs. For instance, mechanization in automobile assembly caused bad economy around the world. In the beginning, everything on the line was done by humans in order to build a car. The assembly line was a great technological improvement, but today robots are taking over human hand work. As people lose their jobs, they will have hard time getting money which would make it hard for them to continue to meet their living expenses. Moreover, as people use less money the economy gets worse. Especially, if it is a country as large as the United States, the problem will influence the world greatly. Therefore, the whole nationwide production will go down, and so does the living standard. After the inevitable problems, it is considerably believed that unemployment cannot be avoided after the technological expansion. This also has a negative effect on the employees who will be replaced by the new machines. This great problem is getting worse when big companies are getting involved with bad economy. As a result, we are going to see more and more unemployment in society as we go farther.
In conclusion, Alaimo and Koester are right. Technology has made life easier and quicker, but dangerous. Technology has definitely changed the lifestyle and common purpose of many people. People are getting lazy. Almost everything must be done for them in advance. Hopefully people will not get used to watching a robot do all the work for them. Society needs to stand up and do something in order to have unstressed life along with modern technology.