Technology and its negative impacts

Across the world, technology and its disruptive consequences are on the rise. Any world, population, and area of human life are affected by technology’s negative effects. The technological aspects that have led to these cases have been shown to revolve around advances in the food industry, job administration, economic downturns, social and moral decay, and the workforce sector. Despite the importance of technology, the majority of people are often caught in the middle of a squabble that threatens their emotional, societal, physical, religious, and psychological well-being. Although exploration has been conducted to determine the effect of technology broadly, a lot of questions remain unanswered regarding the negative impact of this on the human population (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016).

Technology has been defined as the scientific innovation and rise technological edge in aspects that revolve around human stay on earth. The negative impact of technology are effects that emerge as a result of the use of a given scientific innovation. As such, the impacts are on the environment, people’s health, social life, and climate of among other aspects of human population. The negative effects are felt by majorly the youth, social media which is a branch of technological advancement possess core negative effects on the youth. In America, statistics show that 3-10 million of youths are exposed to unemployment and social degradation as a result of negative effect of technology (Eberendu, 2015). Children who are witnesses to this menace have been shown to undergo emotional and psychological torment which may affect their moral development.

The present study will investigate the negative effects associated with technology. This will include the unemployment, erosion of moral values and addiction to online games, effect on student performance, environmental issues, family problems, and pollution. Research relating to this issue will be analysed to ascertain the available information and create a synthesis of effects as per the global technological trends. The present study will answer the question: what are the impacts of technology? More specifically, the research will delve into the negative impacts of technology on a number of aspects that revolve around human population in all elements of technology.

Literature Review

The prevalence of effects of technology is well documented over time. However, the negative effect of technology are yet to be exhaustively studied. While most studies aim at finding the benefits of technology, the negative impacts have not been explored thoroughly.

Younes & Al-Zoubi (2015) studied the connection between exposure to technology on children and their development. The study aimed at establishing the association between the negative acts seen in childhood and their replication in adult life. Indeed, most children tend to behave and acquire the behaviour that they observe from a number of technological aspects. The study involving 124 participants found out that exposure to video games as an aspect of technology in the family contributed to development to adult perpetrators among the respondents. This revealed that the moral stability of the children was affected leading to adaptation of violent behaviour as a positive value in them. In the study, violent behaviour was cultivated by constant use of war-like video games by children as they grow and cyber-bullying. Such exposure corrupted and affected the innocence of children and led to a number of teens suffer from suicidal cases due to cyber-bullying, social isolation, and lack of social skills. Younes & Al-Zoubi (2015) concluded that technological exposure led to high chances of violence among the children in the future.

In a systematic review by Eberendu (2015), the negative effects of technology were addressed. This was done by looking at the literature for the past 15 years and used to show the relationship between technology and the environment. It was concluded that there were effects of technology on the environment. This was through pollution by electronic manufacturing plants that emit E-wastes in form of deadly chemicals. The report noted that over 30% of electronic plants had poor methods of waste disposal that affected the health of almost 2 million people globally. With people near the chemical plants being at the centre of the crises, a number of health and biological effects have been noted. The review further suggested that E-pollutants when taken or inhaled affected the cells and the body systems including reproductive organs which makes people sterile.

Siddiqui & Singh (2016) studied the relationship between technology and the labour sector. The study aimed at finding the impact of innovation and improved technology on the workers. Using an experimental approach, 340 men working in a sampled industry and those around the industry. The results indicated that the participants who were workers in the industry for along period of time for more than four decades confessed of how technology has led laying off of workers. This indicated that they have felt the work that was done by 1000 people is now done by less than 200 people. Therefore, the unemployment impact of technology was unravelled. Although the study did not give a conclusion that technology was related to unemployment, it was clear that an economic gap existed among the victims. The study delved on the term unemployment in most industries today, this has led to computerization of many industries hence reducing the labour need of the industries. Indeed, resultant negative effects associated with laying off workers due to technological edge are many, which include loss of already established social status, family challenges, and emotional outcomes including those related to health were observed. Although unemployment is not within the scope of this study, Paluch (2011) had noted that unemployment has affected a myriad families due to inability of such families to support themselves after losing their jobs due to innovation in the labour sector.

Victor (2012) studied the analysis of technology in education and the negative impact on students. In this study, 250 students in institutions of high learning were asked on the impact of technology on education and performance of students. However, the study delved on the negative impact of technology. The results of the study showed the majority of student who are exposed to technology have encountered a number of challenges in their school life. The results were supported by Swearengen (2007), this showed that, majority of students miss out to attend or to understand what the teachers are teaching in class due to spending much time in social media through their phones in class. These has affected the retention and retrieval power of students in such conditions. Also, most student spend much of their time in the internet browsing and watching you tube instead of studying their notes. This attributes to poor performance of students since they cannot recall set time to review their assignments and class work. In this view, technology has killed the power of research, creativity, and critical thinking in students. Students no longer do their own genuine work or research instead they just google, copy and paste from the internet. This has led to laziness among the students since they find all information in the internet. The study also revealed that, moral decay was one of the challenges of the technology experienced by students, instead of concentrating on research in the internet, they spend time watching pornographic sites. This has affected the behaviour portrayed by such students. The students get addicted and since they get dependent on technology and spend a lot of time on it. The mobile technology for instance may lead to a number of challenges in the education or classroom which affects learning in a classroom setting. Consequently, the attention time is reduced drastically by such addiction.

Swearengen (2007) also sought to establish whether there was relationship between technology and religion. The study aimed at analysing the impact of technology on religious life of a number of people. The results showed that, majority of people who dwell much in technology and find no time in attending their religious functions. Some of the technological elements are not in line with the several religions stands. For instance, the aspect of pornography and constantly in social media at the expense of religious activities. Also, the study gives the effects that people face for constantly using technology. The negative effect include emotional and mental disturbance like anxiety, delusion, and phobia. Furthermore, the study showed that many incidences included lack of sleep, anxiety, loss of appetite and even depression among people exposed to technology. Also, physical health concerns including self-harm were reported showing the extent of psychological trauma experienced by the people witnesses. All these symptoms are collectively termed as neurosis, which occur due to a person being convinced that he is sick after watching or looking up a strange disease on the web. Another problem addressed by the study is the loss of eyesight and hearing. This was revealed to occur when people constantly use headphones and straining looking at the computer for a long period of time.

Conclusion

Considering the use of technology, the negative impacts are looming into a myriad sectors of human life. The literature outlines the negative impact that has affected the economic sector in terms of forced unemployment, environmental challenges in terms of pollution, health effect, social, moral, and education challenge. These negative effects adversely have affected the society and a number researches done on the same is a key element in the current times. In the recent times, the research on this topic has been getting a blow due to constant technological changes that tend to outsmart the negative effects of technology. In this regard, the challenges of integrating research in such fields counter challenges due to the quest of each country to run to sophisticated high-tech measures that are beyond research and analysis using ordinary and existing literature. Therefore, these inconsistencies have to be addressed for a comprehensive study in this topic. Also, the topic of study needs to be streamed lined into specific areas of technology for more defined and specific impacts.

References

Eberendu, A. C. (2015). Negative Impacts of Technology in Nigerian Society. International Journal of Business and Management Review, 3 (2), 23-29.

Paluch, S. (2011). Remote Service Technology Perception and its Impact on Customer-Provider Relationships: An Empirical Exploratory Study in a B-to-B-setting. Germany: Springer Science & Business Media.

Siddiqui, S., & Singh, T. (2016). Social Media its Impact With Positive and Negative Aspects. International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and Research, 5 (2), 2319-8656.

Swearengen, J. C. (2007). Beyond Paradise: Technology and the Kingdom of God. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Victor, W. C. X. (2012). Technology and Its Impact on Educational Leadership: Innovation and Change: Innovation and Change. IGI Global. Hershey: IGI Global.

Younes, M. B., & Al-Zoubi, S. (2015). The Impact of Technologies on Society: A Review. IOSR Journal of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS), 20 (2), 82-86.