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Berenice Vargas
Mrs.Beal
English 10/Period 3
19 May 2016
Modern Technology and Society
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury focuses on how technology is deadening the human
experience. He shows the readers how removing books and adding advanced technology
changed how people thought and how emotionless everyone felt. Bradbury describes many
different technologies in the book that did not exist at the time he wrote the book, but now some
of these inventions can be seen currently in society. He talked about how technology was
changing how people communicated and how little they interacted face-to-face. Technology has
affected society negatively through social media, mentally and in health issues, and
communication.
Social media is a distraction, has risks, dangers, and upsets many teenagers mood or
behavior. According to Caitlin Probst in her article 10 Ways Social Media Affects Our Mental
Health, social media distracts and is a relief of boredom making it difficult for a person to
stop. Social media has become addictive to people of all ages not just teenagers, and social
media has become a priority in many peoples everyday routine. A statistic from Probsts article
shows that, 95% of teenagers who use social media have witnessed cyberbullying and 33%
have been victims themselves. Many users login into social networking services every day and
witness people call other people hurtful words and act normal. Social media has made bullying
easier and more common. Social media makes users compare themselves to others and think less

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of their own lives. (Probst) Teenagers in particular have felt anxiety and depression from the high
standards social networks put on active users.
Technology affects us mentally and puts people in risk of health issues. Screen time can
affect kids on childhood obesity, irregular sleep patterns, and social behavioral issues.
(Summers) Schools should teach children the possible consequences if technology is used
incorrectly from its original use. According to Pamela Deloatch, Children who spend too much
time on technology have less imagination and cannot read or think deeply about material.(The
Four Negative Sides of Technology) Schools need to influence their students with better ways to
communicate or have activities where students have to interact with each other. More
technology such as cars, television, computers, and mobile devices lead to less exercise from
spending too much time on or with them that it can lead to obesity. (Summers) Technology does
not have to be destroyed, but be limited on how much time is spent on them to have a healthy
media diet.
Technology has advanced from televisions to smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electronic
games. Technology has been advertised as increasing the level of communication skills in
between long distance relationships. According to Juana Summers, research was experimented
and the 6th graders who went 5 days without exposure to technology were better at reading
human emotions. (Kids and Screen Time) Children without technology for about a week had
better social skills then those who had access to technology. Reducing face-to-face interaction
will reduce our social skills. (Kids and Screen Time) If kids or adults are always on their device
they spend less time interacting with other people, decreasing their social skills that can affect
their communication a valuable aspect. In the article Social Isolation and New Technology,
Mobile phones are used to stay in touch with family and friends but face-to-face contact still
trumps all other methods of communication. (Hampton,et al) In other words, no matter how

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much society tries to innovate the old fashion face-to-face interaction it is still going to be the
best form of communication.
Technology has improved society in its diversity in networks. According to Pamela
Deloatch, Technology adds diversity to lessons, increase student interaction, and brings new
perspective and knowledge. (The Four Negative Sides of Technology) Schools have
incorporated technology in their curriculum and have seen many benefits to the access of internet
in classrooms but however this technological network can be used to get students off task and
can be used as a distraction. In Social Isolation and New Technology, Social media activities are
associated with several beneficial social activities like having discussion networks with people
from different backgrounds. (Hampton, et al.) Social networks have made is possible to meet
new people and communicate and share their experiences but shows no improvement in people
interacting in person and not through a device. Social media helps revive and preserve
relationships with other people. (10 Ways Social Media Affects our Mental Health) Long
distance relationships are now possible through technology and have made it possible to find
family members from another country or an old friend from school. Although the access to
internet has made this possible it is not the same interaction as getting to greet each other face-toface
Technology has both improved and deadened how we experience moments and our
routine of life. The Internet is seen as an importance in peoples lives that when not having
Internet signal is seen as a crisis. Phones have taken our attention from work, school, and
sometimes our friends and family. Communicating through social media has become a huge
trend and has people hooked up on spending their time on their social networking service
trying to earn peoples approval through likes. Social networking services have parted from being
a communication tool, to a popularity contest to see who has more followers. Technology was

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invented to improve and help with issues but instead it has become an addiction and users have
become slaves to technology.

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Works Cited
Deloatch, Pamela. The Four Negative sides of Technology. Edudemic. Edudemic, 2 May 2015.
Web, 12 May 2016
Hampton, Keith. Social Isolation and New Technology. Pew Research Center. Pew Research
Center, 4 November 2009. Web, 12 May 2016
Probst, Caitlin. 10 Ways Social Media Affects our Mental Health. Degreed. Degreed, 29 April
2015. Web, 12 May 2016
Summers, Juana. Kids and Screen Time: What does the Research Say? nprED. nprED, 28
August 2014. Web, 12 May 2016
Turk, Gary. Look Up. Online video clip. Youtube, 25 April 2014. Web, 12 May 2016