Have you noticed that we are becoming more dependant to the technology? Most of us did not even think about the effects of it, but it is changing our lives in high degrees. When we look a few years ago, we can see these changes easily. We become less communicative, less productive and ess hard-working with the rapid development of technology. We are forgetting our old habits and worths. We do not give priority to face-to-face conversations, we prefer virtual ones. We do not give importance to labor, we download kinds of art or we buy mass-produced things rather than handmade ones.
Some people tend to insist on claiming that technology is a harmless thing but we should accept its negative effects. There are two main negative effects on technology on two main areas; economy and social skills. First of all, technology has affected economy negatively. With the development of technology, automation and mass-production techniques has developed, too. And they became the biggest reason for job loss. The machines are doing work of humans. Although new factories have been opening, they do not need humans for production process. There are even some factories which has no humans working there.
In addition to job loss, technology also caused some kind of companies to shut down. For example, people who used to buy newspapers everyday, started to use the Internet. They do not buy newspapers, they prefer to read news from the Internet for free. It caused a decrease in the sale of newspapers and this decrease has lessened the need for publishing companies. Also, firms that print newspapers, provide paper and other supplies and deliver the newspapers to shops are affecting negatively from this. Next thing technology has affected is quality of art. Music albums, films, books and many other things are now available on the Internet.
People can download everything to their computers. While doing this, they do not respect copyrights. They just download things illegally and without paying any money. It affects musicians or artists negatively. they couldn’t earn enough money from the album or DVD sales. So that they have to decrease the cost and then there exists unqualified works of art. In addition to that, every person who have a little knowledge of using computer programs about music making or photoshop try to perform art and again we see unqualified works. For example, teenagers try to make music with electronic devices and without any musical nstruments. They just use computer programs which allows you writing songs and making music. They think they are making a new kind of music.
Some people think a professional photograph machine and a good photoshop program make them photographers. People seem to becoming more intellectualist by develeopment of technology but in fact they are becoming unconscious about what art is. Besides the negative effects on art and economy, technology also harms social skills of human and communication between people. Over-using technology caused less face-to-face communication and it loosen the ties between friends or family members.
According to the article ”Technology and Art”, television was designed for becoming an entertainment tool but people became addicted to it. They come from work and sit in front of TV and cut all conversations with their environment. Moreover, most probably their children go their room and play video games or hang on the Internet. There is no communication between members in that kind of families. Everyone spend time with technology, not with each other. In addition to less communication with family, people tend to less communicate with their friends.
Main reason for that they can talk each other on social networks or on the phone. So that they do not need face-to-face meetings. Another negative effect of technology is encouraging laziness. For example, teenagers do not step outside of home to find entertainment because their online video games are enough for them. They do not prefer to go and play basketball with their friends, they prefer virtual ones. Another example is when your friend has something to say to you, instead of going a café and talking face-to-face, you just talk on the phone. Beside physical laziness, tachnology makes our minds lazy,too.
When we are responsible for an assignment at schol, we find something from Google and just copy it and paste it to a new page. Moreover, we do not even examine the accuracy of the information we find. To sum up, there are some negative effects of technology on our lives. People are becoming more lazy and face-to-face communication is losing its importance. Also, art is becoming mechanised and respect for one’s labor is decreasing. Technology takes the role of humans and maybe in the future, humans won’t need each other for living. Technology will fulfill every need of human.
