Impact of Technology On Society

Have you ever been a victim of cybercrime, such as hacking, e-mail threat, Credit card fraud? If yes, then you are aware of How dangerous technology can be. If not, then you are blessed. A pop-up e-mail that says "congrats! you have won a lottery of 1 million" can be a cyber fraud. All these frauds are due to the excessive use of technology.

From my life, I learned that excessiveness and dependency on things could be harmful, as everything needs moderation. However, the world is dependent on the excessive use of technology, leading to a drastic change in our culture, communication, thinking style, and values. People forget that even though technology is making our life faster and better, its excessive use can impact their health, lifestyle, culture, and relationships.

However, technology alone is not responsible for these issues; society is equally guilty.

What is Society?

A Society is a group or community of people who share a common human relationship with similar traditions, interests, and institutions. This group of people shares a common economy, government, rules, and region which connects them. The social connection between these people is ensured with their participation in everything with a common purpose or separate different purposes.

What is Technology?

Applying the scientific knowledge to use it in everyday life of humans. Technology often confuses people about its origin, gauging it as complex and connected with electricity or a scientific concept. However, technology is merely the specific use of the equipment and applying it for making things innovative and easier, such as using little chips RAM and negating the whole CPU system into a sleek laptop. Also, a transformation of MP3 to music in smartphones, and even a chip installed in our ears, is technology.

Positive and Negative Impacts of Technology on Society

   Positive

• It has improved the healthcare system and increased the life rate - One of the positive gifts of technology is its contribution to the healthcare system. Curing and treating even incurable diseases while saving the lives of millions. The Healthcare system was early dependent on herbs that were not even scientifically proven to treat disease. But with technology, we can analyze and examine any illness and find a cure for it, such as MRI and CT scans. 
• The education system has evolved with technology - Technology has given various transformations in the education sector with advanced learning, such as VR technology, where children can learn every concept more fun and innovative while getting an education. Also, technology has presented various new subjects and fields of expertise that can become a career platform for children. 
• There are better ways to protect the environment - we can say technology is the reason behind increased pollution and harmful impact on the environment with its rays killing animals and trees. But it also has been the first to protect the environment with technologies like water purification, recycling and reuse of products, and green startups.

Negative

• Increased misinformation misleading people - While being a source to access information in seconds, technology has also become a source behind fake information and misleading truth, which has confused communities and even became a political agenda of insecurity and negative between nations.
• The affected mental health of people - People are always online and disconnected from the real world, which has impacted their social lifestyle. A person having physical contact only with technology is the easiest victim of loneliness, anxiety, depression, causing an impact on their mental health.
• Increased theft and cybercrime - Excessive use of technology has also provided a platform to people with a criminally creative mindset. The number of victims of cybercrime has increased with easy access to technology.

Impact of Technology on Different Segments of Society

• On Education

The world has become a tech society. I don't know anyone who does not access any tech device unless that person is a monk, and children are the most rapid users of technology. The pandemic has even increased the use of technology with online classes, online examinations, and the whole education system being dependent on technology. We might say that the education system needs to use technology; the current globalized world requires the upcoming generation to be comfortable with technology to ensure growth and success in the future.

So, the education of children has to be technical and advanced. Moreover, the world can acknowledge the advantage that technology brings into education, with online lectures, extra advanced curriculum, communication, access to the best education from anywhere in the world, personalized learning methods, etc. However, a face-to-face environment was beneficial for a kid to react and understand things more practically while learning to cope with the world around them. Still, with the increasing technology, face-to-face education might become extinct.

• On Industry

The revolution of technology had presented the industrial sector to be blessed in all aspects, with better and advanced digital technology that can improve their production and design of the produced goods. Technology has provided growth to the industrial sector with better flexibility and enhanced performance as the interconnection of tasks becomes self-regulated with technology that prevents the wastage of time (Also, learn the importance of punctuality) and leads to increased productivity which reduces the cost of unsold items and leads to improved productivity of machines, as well as human power. Technology also improves intercommunication, reduces miscommunication confusion, and leads to proper delegation and completion of a task, which is beneficial for this sector.

• On Medical 

The impact of technology on the medical sector cannot be identified as a give or a threat, as technology is a reason behind the increase in certain diseases. It is also a reason behind finding a cure for many of them. With technology, the medical sector can access the inner partials of a human body and find a cure for them. At the time of organ damage, there is technology to remove and replace that organ. If a person's heart fails, there is technology to treat it as well. Diseases such as cancer, COVID, tuberculosis, malaria, heart diseases, lung diseases, everything are cured and treated with the help of technology.

Technology induced Social and Cultural Changes

Social Changes

• Breakdown of communication - The increased use of technology has provided various sources of entertainment and information for everyone; this technology is also the reason behind the increased gap between families and causing strain of their relationship. I have seen examples of people who text each other while sitting in a room together. This communication issue leads to causing relationship disputes, cheating in marriage, children being neglected, which can increase the crime rate of adolescent teenagers, and disruption of families.  
• Increase in character defamation and identity theft - Before technology, people could only attempt fraud by coping with someone's signature; however, there are various methods of attempting fraud with technology. Even a search engine such as Google will tell you 10 ways to attempt fraud. With technology, you can defame a character on any social media app, or even you change your identity or take an identity of someone else; all this is so easy with social media, hacking, and other frauds, which leads to crimes and reduces the trust and believe of kindness and honesty from society.  
• Cyberbullying - Spiteful population of our society have also got access to attack people through technology; we all have heard a case of cyberbullying, such as boy's locker room pages of teenage boys attacking teenage girls, and sharing their images to comment on their body and looks. Children are even bullied to the verge of suicide and forced to do things they will never do.
• Increase in gaming addiction in children - Have you heard of a game called PUBG, which has addicted almost all of the young generation. This addiction to gaming impacts their education mental health and even makes them arrogant and irritated people. Some games, such as Blue Whale, lead them even to attempt suicide. Not even children, even adults, are addicted to games, which eventually irritates and mentally exhausts them, leading to conflicts and fights in families.
• Reduced privacy - with their social media application and access to information on google, nothing is private. This innovative change is a huge threat to privacy, with every getting access to everything. With these social applications and mobile tracking, every company and government can access our personal information, even leading to something negative.
• Increased crime and terrorism - this lack of privacy due to technology use has also increased crime and terrorism. The nation planning on attacking others can access information of their citizens and plan an attack leading to a world war.

Cultural changes

• Impacted the values and perception of society- Technology has changed our way of thinking impacted our perception and values. The innovative technology has connected us with various cultures, tribes, and different societies. However, our art, language, mobility, religion, everything is no more sacred, and society has become even more diverse and advanced. Everything is transformed into something mixed, removing the uniqueness of our values. Such as, with the internet, we can talk to anyone around the world, which leads to the adaptation of new values and the extinction of a person's original culture.
• Overanalyzing judgmental society got a gift of technology- Society is already judgmental, which is their way of expressing. The more informed technology has also given the judgmental part of the society a platform of expressing it in front of the whole world; this leads to more conflicts, wars, an increased number of mental illnesses, and other negative changes in our culture.
• Downfall in ethnicity and cultural ideology- Before technology, certain cultural ideologies and restrictions somehow managed to save our world from getting filled with crime and negativity. The current growth of technology has removed those ideologies and transformed everything to cool, impacting the increased negativity.

Conclusion

Technology was created as a means for us to grow and explore the extent of this world. However, its negative use by us is leading to destruction. Also, these frauds are not something technology is planning to use; technology is becoming a medium for an already existing criminal in our society to attempt these crimes. If we cannot identify every mischief mind from society, we cannot remove the technology due to its excessive gifts. One thing which we can do is use it in moderation.

Frequently Asked Question

Q1- How technology has changed the world?

Answer- With innovative technology and its rapidly increasing change, the world is becoming smarter and better. Technology has improved our standard of living while building faster and easier lifestyles. Technology has also contributed to providing employment and improving the world's economy with globalization; these changes have transformed our world.

Q2- Does technology affects the social behaviour of people?

Answer- Yes, as much as we deny technology has impacted our social behaviour, while gadgets and technological devices have taken over our attention, we interact less in our social environment. People are becoming more introverted and choosing gadgets over meeting new people; we use phone calls as a decoy to avoid social gatherings, making us anti-social.

Q3- How does technology impacts marriage, family, and friendship?

Answer- Earlier, when there was limited access to technology or even before there was no technology, people used to go to work to finish their work. When they returned home, their priority was family, friends, and spouse. With the increased use of technology, people take their work home and forget their family time. Leading to increasing stress and tension between husband and wife, alienated affection, conflicts, dissatisfaction, and children feeling abandoned. It also changed our way of enjoying life, as earlier we used to have fun by playing poker or having a party with friends, but now watching a movie or playing a game is fun. This change impacts our mental health and affects our relationships and bonds.

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