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Has technology helped us? ” No Matter where we turn in the world, technology has become a part of our daily lives. We can find technology in businesses, hospitals, schools, communities and pretty much everywhere we turn. Some argue that we are too dependent on technology and as a result we have become isolated rather than more sociable; an example would be our newest generation of children that spend countless hours playing by themselves video games, computer games or sitting in front of a TV for hours. These children rarely interact with others, except through technology.
Yet, we also see the benefits such as how technology has brought us closer to each other through webcams, cell phones, and more real-time communication tools. We will review the pros and cons of technology from the beginning of computers until today and why it is a good thing that technology exist, why were better with it then without it. There are many ways that technology has advanced and helped us. The first thing that I can think of is the car that was developed in 1672, of course it didn’t look like the average car that we know today, but that single invention transformed our ability to travel distances.
It impacted how we were able to expand cities and even transformed factories through the assembly line process. Another great invention that transformed our society was the first computer, which was developed in 1946. The ENIAC was one of the first computers that ever used in the United States. Although we didn’t know what it was or what it did, it was a great step towards advancements in technology. The ENIAC was announced in 1946, and its purpose was to “calculate artillery firing tables for the U. S. Army’s ballistic research laboratory,” states Wikipedia.
Later, more computers were introduced and started changing and more people that were not involved in government started to use them. The development of Apple’s Mac, Dell, Sony, and Phillips were some of the first sold to the public. Now, you can get one of the best computers, which I consider to be a Mac, for as low as $1000 dollars. Now if you want a cheap computer that doesn’t compare to Mac, but is still useful would probably be a Dell that you can get as low as a $300 dollars. Every computer has useful things to the owner, but it depends on what you want and how much you want to spend.
It is common to find a laptop in almost every U. S. household and that allows us to connect to the internet, track our expenses, play games, share pictures, talk to people in other countries and work on school assignments. It is amazing how much the computer has evolved and how it has transformed our homes. Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford were the first in America that developed the car, another important technology that we should be grateful for. Ransom claimed that he first built the first steam car in 1894, later his first gasoline powered car in 1896.
Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company, the one we know today. Henry being the owner of Ford Company was known to be the richest man in the world, because of how it dramatically changed our lives in transportation. He later started selling his product and building factories in places all over the world, where he continued to use Ford. “He opened Ford assembly plants in Britain and Canada in 1911, and soon became the biggest automotive producer in those countries”, said Wikipedia. Of course in today’s life there are better cars and trucks like Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Jeep, Cadillac, etc.
Who knows since technology keeps advancing and changing maybe one day there will be flying cars? One particular piece of technology that I am personally thankful for and that I enjoy very much is the portable media players or MP3 players. It has transformed how we listen to music and mostly everyone that I know has one. Music as I know was first used as a Big Disc that you would put on a record, then came the tape player. The tape player was a big block of tape that was used in cars and for handheld use. Sure today you don’t find many or hardly any people using a tape player any more, but it was a popular object in the 1980’s.
Later on in the 90’s, CD’s started to take over tape players and soon stereos started to change and took out tape players. Unfortunately CD Players did not last long. Mp3 Players started to sell in every electronic store and people stopped buying CD Players and bought an Mp3 Player instead. Advancements and upgrades have changed the average mp3 player now. It is able to get on the Internet, play movies, and some even come with GPS technology. The iPod of course is the top selling mp3 electronic sold in stores.
Again iPods have taken the league in selling their famous Mp3 players. E-How tells us “Apple also released the iPod Touch, the first iPod with a touch-sensitive screen. Like the Nano, it used flash memory instead of a hard drive as its storage device. This was also the first iPod to receive Wi Fi capability. It comes with a built-in web browser, email client and other applications. ” Medicine has leveraged technology to increase our life expectancy. Many vaccines, tests, and medications have been created, tested and approved through the use of technology.
If it weren’t for medicine and the technological advances then a lot of people would die from common illnesses like a cold or the flu, which could kill us faster. Thanks to the development of Medicine and some of the machines that we use today, which help us save lives or make people feel better or improve their illness. The X-Ray Machine, The ultra sound Machine, and the Defibrillators are some of the machines that hospitals use today. E-How says, “There are three types of Defibrillators which are available for use in different settings. The one that is most used is the one that is in the hospitals. Wow, so many things involve technology these days that some people think that we are starting to rely too much on technologies and it’s not good for us. I have seen that it’s made a huge change in little kid’s lives. When I was little at the age of 8, I remember that the only thing that I had for electronic was my Nintendo, other then that I always remember that I went to the park or played outside rather then being inside and playing all day long on a game boy or Xbox 360.
Familyresource tells us that “Many gamers have things they would like to do in life, but they never get around to it, because they spend so much of their time playing games. Then, when they do have time to work on one of their projects, they’re too tired to do it, because they stayed up till 3am playing a game”. I consider that a huge change in kids’ lives; kids lack social skills, there is more child obesity and many parks are empty. Now days, I even see more obese people than ever. I never used to really notice it, but now it’s an issue that has caught everyone’s attention.
I guess if you ask me, why are there more obese children everyday? My response would be that little kids are eating very poorly and don’t study well and are more concentrated on video games like Gears of wars, call of Duty (Modern warfare especially) and their parents don’t do anything about it. “The use of electronic games should be limited to prevent childhood obesity”, says Xbox addict. com. Something else that people might not know or don’t care is where America stands when it comes to being the smartest. At age ten, American students take an international test and score well above the international average. But by age fifteen, when students from forty countries are tested, the Americans place twenty-fifth,” Reason. com comments. And I do believe that this could happen because that’s the age where kids, especially boys start to change and get more interested in games than in school. Now that might sound a little too harsh because it’s the truth, but these are a few errors that have happened along the way and it’s something that can be fixed within time.
Yahoo News explains a way that Obama might find a way to help with this concern. “The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go. ” Now this is more like it. This is a good way to start by increasing school time and less time playing video games, or whatever it is kids play these days. Technology is not the problem; it is the fact that we abuse it. But as long as we don’t abuse it, we should be ok.
I learned my lesson when I had an Xbox360; I was always playing it for almost 12 hours straight until I got the death ring (when the Xbox overheats too much and doesn’t work any more). Ever since it started working and making money I’ve been battling to not fix it or buy another console, because if I do get another one or get it fix, then I know that I will stop studying and doing homework. Like I said before these are few things that can be fixed within days or months, and technology is not that bad it’s a good thing for us because if it didn’t exist then we would not have much progress and who knows how different our lives would be.
I think that it’s all part of our evolution. We can all see how there are differences in the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s and it happened so quickly, but it is ok, it made a perfect impact on us. Sure if you were to ask somebody today in the street, “would you be able to live without technology or electronics these days? ” My answer for all the people would be 50-50 some may think that they probably could live without it and then there are the people that are completely dependant on technology. If you ask me if I would be able to live without it, I would say I don’t know but I can sure give it a try.