yEnglish 101/105ReportEver since the Industrial revolution, technology has been changingat afast pace. People are always wanting a better lifestyle therefore there isalways something new arising so humans can cope with their physicalenvironment.
One of the most important breakthroughs for technology was theagriculturalsystem. The agricultural system was the basis for the technology of thefuture. The agricultural system brought on the need for transportation, workers andeven,battles over land. The need for transportation brought vehicles into themarket.
The need for employees brought mechanical robots into society. Battlesoverland brought on the need for sophisticated weapons. The agriculturalsystembrought on a revolution. The invention of the television can bring mediaandother forms of entertainment into your house with video and audio combined.
Before 1950, newspapers and radio were the only ways to bring media orentertainment into the house. Mass production and other job opportunitiesbrought many people from the suburbs and farms into the city. We can nowhaveforms of electricity directed into our houses for heating and light. Humans aremore reliant on technology then ever before.
All of these technologicaladvances sound great, however, there is a negative effect to all thistechnology. Technology can serve to actually harm humans rather then help them. Competitionbetween companies or even cities can sometimes make lives for humans evenworse. Take for example when a city builds better and more roads to attracttourists. This actually creates more traffic, not less.
Technology also changes oursenseof common purpose. New inventions such as the personal computer andmachinescan change our lifestyles. Even things we take for granted such as theautomobile have negative effects on technology. The oil needed for a carto runneeds to be imported and sometimes accidents such as the Exxon Valdezincidentspills many gallons of oil into the ocean. All of these examples show howtechnology has negative effects on society. First, competition can lead to a negative effect of technology.
When acompany in the U. S. produces shoes and a company in Great Britain producesshoesas well, they must fight for their market share. Lets say the company inGreatBritain purchases more machines that will reduce the amount of workersneededand improve output, then they can reduce the price of their product.
Ifthecompany in New York doesn’t follow in their footsteps then they could beforcedout of business. In this case the company is forced into buying themachinesjust so they can stay in business. This has a negative effect on theemployeeswho will be replaced by the new machines. When a city wants to attracttouristsby building better roads to lessen traffic there is a mistake because thiswillonly create more traffic since there will be more people wanting to traveltheseroads. McManus says the inability to see the future is responsible for thenegative effects of new technologies. He also states better roads causemoretraffic congestion, not less.
By creating better roads, more people willwantto travel these roads (A-1). If New York City built a new sophisticatedhighway to attract more tourists then more New Yorkers will want to traveltheseroads as well. Many New Yorkers who previously used mass transit to traveltowork will now want to use a car to travel to work. In effect there will bemoretraffic and more pollution. There will be other side effects as well. Realestate values of areas near the highway could go down.
Competition canhelp acommunity in one aspect however it can hurt it as well. Competition candirectly stimulate the economy, however, long term effects such aspollution andthe loss of jobs could explain why the City of New York doesn’t complete aproject like this. Second, technology can change our sense of common purpose. Formillionsof years, mankind has been used to doing everything for themselves. For alongtime peoples’ main concerns were survival.
To survive means to go out intothewoods or forests and shoot animals for the food which the family needs toeatfor the day. People of modern society never think about hunting for foodorclothes. Now, it is all brought to people instantly through a new standardofsurvival. The new standard for survival means making money to go to a mallorsupermarket and getting everything a family needs. A family can get foodandclothing at these places without ever having to go into a forest or a lake. This thought is ever so frightening.
When a person from modern societygoesinto a supermarket and buys a pound of fish, he or she doesn’t even thinkof theprocess that went into the arrival of that piece of fish. He or she didn’tneedto go to a lake, all that was needed was to drive to your local supermarketandbuy it. No fishing or hunting was necessary. Humans are losing theirsense ofcommon purpose. “But what ‘revenge effect’ will this have? The technology-resistance movement begins by pointing out that we are cobbling togethervirtualcommunities while our real cities crumble, at least partly because oursense ofcommon purpose has frayed.
Today, only about 5 percent of Americanhouseholdsare on-line, but what happens, the critics wonder, when half the country iswired? Will we escape the unpleasant complications of the world outsideourlocked doors by opting for communities in ‘cyberspace,’ where we can enjoythecompany of people who share our interests and our views? Where the streetsneverneed to be cleaned and you don’t have to keep an eye on your neighbor’shouse?What happens if the sirens outside become too distracting? Will we simplybuyinsulated drapes? (Reed 46). ” Humans are getting lazy. Almost everythingmustbe done for them in advance. However, sometimes this change in lifestyleisforced upon humans. When a company decides to buy robots to do the jobthat manonce did, then the human is forced into either getting fired or watchingthemachine all day long.
Hopefully humans will not get used to watching arobot doall the work for them. Technology has definitely changed the lifestyle andcommon purpose of many humans. Finally, tecnology we take for granted such as the automobile canhave anegative “domino chain effect” on society. The automobile must have beenone ofthe greatest inventions in the last 100 years. It has helped the UnitedStatesto grow in ways never imaginable before.
It allowed people to move out ofhighly congested cities and move into more peaceful neighborhoods. Yet italsolet people feel as if they were still a short drive away from the city. However,the negative effects of the automobile were not thought of in those days. Nowit is clear of what negative effects the automobile has on society.
In recent years, though, we have begun to realize just how much these waysofmaking life easier are costing us–or future generations. Think abouteverythingthat’s involved in the act of driving a car. First, the metal in the bodyof thecar has to be mined. The plastic on the dashboard and other places probablycamefrom petroleum. (Plastics can also be made from coal or natural gas. )Petroleumalso becomes the gasoline that powers the car.
Extracting the petroleuminvolveswells and refineries all over the world. Tankers carry the oil across theseas. Sometimes, as in the case of the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska’sPrinceWilliam Sound, they spill it. Spills can kill birds, fish, and marinemammals bythe thousand.
But major tanker spills account for only 12 percent or so oftheoil that enters the sea in a typical year. The rest–less dramatic but moredestructive–comes from routine operations such as loading and unloading oftankers. Cleaning up after spills and urban pollution is a daunting task,but itcan be done. (Herring 19)Automobiles are a good example of how technology can backfire on thisworld. Automobile exhausts are polluting the atmosphere so much that the next bigtechnological advancement should be to find a way to heal the environment.
However, healing the environment sounds like a great plan except the demandforthe use of automobiles, planes and trains keep rising. As the demandrises,there will be a need to find enough oil and petroleum to run these modes oftransportation. Soon, there will not be enough of these resources left andthere will be severe counter-effects on society if all of these modes oftransportation are taken away. Humans take for granted these modes oftransportation. Humans often live miles away from their place of business. Notransportation means there is no way to get to work unless you switch to ajobwithin walking range of your house.
No transportation means no money andeventually no food. The reliance on technologies we take for granted isalso anegative effect of tecnology. In conclusion, society has recently seen the negative effects ofsociety. Competition between cities and companies has taken away jobs andbrought unwanted and costly projects into pleasurable areas.
A change inlifestyle among almost every human being is yet another negative effect oftechnology. What has happened to people since supermarkets came to town?People do not want to hunt for food anymore. They find it much easier towalkinto a store and purchase it. A third reason why technology has a negativeeffect on society is the advent of highly reliant possessions such as theautomobile.
Many people count on traveling to work everyday by car. Ifthe carwas somehow taken away from people then there would be chaos. It is muchtoolate to take it away. Humans are much too reliant on it.
There is notenoughmass transit to transport all of the present car users. Hopefully, futuretechnologies will be fully considered. We must look at the advantages andconsequences and measure if society will benefit or suffer from thetechnology. Past technologies weren’t fully considered and if they were, there is achancethat the automobile never would have went into production.
