Technology is advancing in many ways and is creating a lot of problems for society. There are a lot of people that will argue against this with very good reasons, but there are plenty of reasons why technology is bad. Technology hurts the environment, leaves people jobless and causes social conflict. Technology creates fewer jobs for people. When businesses are using more machines and technology for work to be done, the workers are fired because they are useless in their department.
Advances in technology are replacing humans and this is a giant cause to less jobs and more unemployment. “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate” (Obama). Owners of businesses want to make their job place to seem “up to date” and more efficient.
With people working, they could easily mess up, but with machines, you can control them and program them to make sure they do the right thing. Evidence shows that technology causes the economic growth to increase by 1%, which causes unemployment rates to decrease by . 3%. Developments in technology contribute to unemployment because it causes changes in demand. As the new industries develop, the old ones suffer. The more technology, the less the jobs need actual humans to do the work.
It is arguable that not all technology is bad; there are still jobs out there that need people to do things that machines cannot do. It is said that the new Radio Frequency Identification technology is made to help the service progress in grocery stores. This will more than likely remove a massive amount of people required for these jobs to maintain their responsibilities. All of the technological advances in America is the biggest reason why people all over the country are jobless. Technology is bad for the environment and causes pollution.
Most electronics contain toxic materials which when is thrown away it usually ends up in a landfill. This trash breaks down and these toxic materials leak into the ground and they can contaminate the water we drink, the plants we eat and the animals that live in the water and soil. When we enjoy the comfort and convenience of modern transportation, a large amount of exhaust gas from automobiles leads to serious air pollution (Elizabeth). The more that the automobile industries increase their technology, the more pollution they are going to make.
They are going to find more chemicals that are very useful to them, but bad for the air. Industries that have advanced their technology cause pollution from its increased work time (Collins). For example cement, steel and other mine based industries that are advancing the technology used to make these things cause more air pollution, solid wastes, and noise pollution than they did when they had human workers. Technology is also a cause of social isolation. The majority of people overuse social networking sites because they allow them to hide their true selves.
Sites like Facebook allow people of all ages to bully. According to the National Crime Prevention Center, over 40% of all teenagers with Internet access have reported being bullied online during the past year. Teenagers that use social networking sites bully other because they are hiding behind the computer as if they were stronger that way. As people spend increasing amounts of time on social networks, they experience less face-to-face interaction. Dealing with a problem between two people face to face will not sound very enthusiastic to them.
Their only result to their conflict is to deal with it online. Teens don’t know the consequences of cyber bullying. They also don’t know how far they can push a person. Technology causes many problems including environmental problems, unemployment and social problems like isolation. The more that technology advances, the more problems there are going to be. If the society doesn’t learn about the problems it causes, there are just going to be more disasters in society’s lifetime.
