Technology Making Us Less Efficient

Roxanne Leonor

English 113B/Project Web

Professor Lawson

Feb. 26, 2013

Technology Making Us Less Efficient

Technology has changed people’s lives through many generations. People have become adapted to the use of advance technology and they keep finding ways how to make everything accommodating to their lifestyle. Technology makes life more simple and easier. No one in this generation could possibly live without technology. It has magically transformed our lives to do things faster and manageable. Although technology has its promising future for mankind, it also has its negative effect to our society especially on our education. Technology is making people less efficient and we would benefit more if we limit ourselves from the usage of technology.

 According to Helen Gao’s article from Stanford Daily, “The hard truth is that other high-performing nations have passed us by during the last two decades.” We are probably wondering how other nations are getting better when it comes to education. It is because Americans became too dependent on technology. “28 percent of people who said they would not be able to live without high-speed Internet (Sala 2012 Opinion).” Our generation has lost its curious to explore nature and everything around them. Instead, they spend more time behind their computer screens, television, cellphones or Xbox. We became blinded to the realization that we are becoming, or yet we are dependent on technology and without it, we will not be able to function. People do not value education as much as they value their technology. Many students are contented on getting a C or a D on their tests scores thinking that it is good enough. Students are bombarded with all these advance technology and they do not know how to value the beneficial use of it. A nonprofit organization in San Francisco conducted by Vicky Rideout says, “Children and teenagers ages 8 to 18 has grown so fast that on their average day, they spend twice as much time with screens each year as they spend in school.” This shows how students tend to neglect their studies because there are too many distractions around them. What is happening is we allow our children to freely abuse technology. Schools are allowing students to use their laptops to take down “notes” and do their research while their Facebook tab is on and constantly chatting with their friends while “studying”. If we put away all these distractions that we are attached and dependent on, we would be able to focus on our academics rather than being constantly behind screens.

 Technology has provided us to gather information that we want to know in just a blink of an eye. There is no need for us to use an encyclopedia or a dictionary to answer our question. With just few clicks on our smartphones or laptops, we could find thousand of answers to our questions. Who would want to read a book if we can just download the PDF or go on Google and read the summary of the book? Our life would be so easy especially to children and teenagers who enjoy writing on their blogs or updating their Facebook status while listening to music and searching for the latest music video on Youtube. “60 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds in 1982 said, they read literature like novels outside school, but in 2002 only 43 percent did. (Clemmitt)” The difference from the students of the old generation, they did not have any sorts of technology such as internet where they can spend their time browsing instead of reading their textbooks. Unlike now, when students get off school, the first thing they check is their cellphones. People back then actually read literature.

 While our education level is slowly sinking, people are still finding ways on how to improve our education system. They think having the advance technology in classroom will increase students learning ability. By providing computers with advance software programs that could “hear” students as they speak and correct and evaluate their progress and they go on. “According to New York’s deputy chancellor of Education John White, ‘if we want our kids to be prepared for life after school in the 21’s century, we need to consider technology a basic element of public education’ (Clemmit).” With this perception, we would be replacing teachers and making technology in charged of students learning and it will be the new way of our educational system. Teachers would no longer teach instead they would just be assisting students to help with technical support. Teachers would suffer as they are trying to compete with the technology. “Technology does not teach. Teachers teach. (Goodwyn)” Despite that digital technology has a great chance in changing our educational system, replacing teachers would not solve the problem but maybe preparing the teachers to these advance technology would solve the issue. Giving them the proper training on how to handle students with these advance digital technology and how they can make it beneficial to our classrooms.

 While many of us think that technology is really helping our educational system, we should also consider its effect towards us. We all know that we cannot go back to the old age and live our lives without these great technologies. We are all depending on it no matter how we deny it to ourselves. Students became dependent on technology and they do not realize the consequence of their attachment to these things. We spend more time on the computer instead of reading and focusing on studying or doing our homework. Yet, we think we should replace teachers with technology thinking it would help us more on improving our test scores. By overusing these generous privileges that technology has to offer, we are becoming less efficient by letting technology take over our education and us. If we limit ourselves from these distractions and focus on one thing we could save ourselves from all the negative effect of over usage of technology. Everything that is too much is bad for us. If we use technology in a responsible way, we would get positive effects in return.

           

           

Work Cited

Clemmitt, Marcia “Digital Education”(Can technology replace teachers?);

“Reading Crisis (Do today’s youth read less than past generations?)

CQ Researcher Data Base A-Z Csun.library

Zeitvogel, Karin, “US Falls to Average in Education Ranking.” Dec. 17, 2010 (Web)

Gao, Helin, “U.S. global education ranking is misleading, school of education scholar argues”, January 24, 2013(Web)

Sala, Mary, “America Has become too dependent on Technology”, Aug. 17, 2012

Richtel, Matt, “Technology is Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say”, New York Times, November 1, 2012(Web)

         

Goodwyn, Bill, “Technology doesn’t teach. Teachers teach.”, Sept 9, 2012 CEO of Discovery Education. (web)