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Mirian Vanegas

English 115

Jennifer Rodrick

Sep 24, 2018

Identities Controlled By Technology

In 1969 a man landed on the moon. What many people thought impossible was

achievable through technology. Ever since this historical moment, technology and its

advancements started and continued to grow rapidly over the decades and it basically became

“One giant leap for Mankind”. The Digital Era quickly followed in which now we have

smartphones and the internet. These advancements in technology have revolutionized the way

we live our daily lives but many generations are being affected by our dependance of technology.

From toddlers to elders, everyone has been conforming to the idea that technology has and will

only keep benefiting us but there have been many things lost during this technological process.

Life skills that we learned as children like, communication skills, critical thinking, and engaged

learning have become difficult for adolescents because they have lost their identity due to the

amount of time spent using technology.

Shakiratul Hanany Abd Rahman, author of, “Can’t Live without my FB, LoL: The

Influence of Social Networking Sites on the Communication Skills of TESL Students” talks

about how face to face communication is no longer favorable in most cases of interactions.

“This scenario may affect our communication skills since it is observed that face-to-face

communication takes place lesser these days​.” ​Adolescents and teens have lost or have gained
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limited communication skills to help them have face to face relationships, which are crucial in

forming adults with the capacity of being able to express themselves and their ideas. Since there

is little to no face to face communications they lose the ability to socialize or give a presentation

in class because they’ve lost a sense of connection between peers and friends.

Nicholas Carr, an American author, in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” argues

about how the use of technology has affected people in general but himself as well. Throughout

the article Carr realizes how much we have become dependant of technology.Sergey Brin, one of

Google’s creators, was interviewed by Newsweek and he stated that “Certainly if you had all the

world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than

your brain you’d be better off’. Although, being smart thanks to technology sounds like a good

idea it will hurt our ability to critically think. In the article called “ Technology addiction disrupts

teenage learning” a study was made on how technology was used in a educational context in

which 59.2% of students admitted to having used plagiarism. This means that having resources

such as Google at their fingertips makes it easier for students to take advantage of those

resources and used them to complete assignments. By doing this, students are limiting their

critical skills used to brainstorm and create new ideas out of scratch. In our society we makes

decisions based on judgements, opinions, and choices we make for ourselves and our

communities but with our dependance in technology that is all being taken away by the

need/necessity of having to be always connected to the internet.

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In the article“Children, Teens, and Entertainment Media” it talks about a teachers

perspective in and opinions in their students attention spans and ability to focus in class activities

and during class lessons. “Attention span -- The biggest problem area is students' attention spans.

A total of 71% of teachers say that students' media use is hurting their attention spans, ranging

from 63% of elementary school teachers to 80% of high school teachers.”. Students are able to

multitask using the technology around them and they tend to lose focus on their learning and

environment. Multitasking is beneficial in some occasions but not when it comes to learning in

the classroom. In the article called “ Technology addiction disrupts teenage learning” a survey

was given to students and they discovered that a little over 50% of students were addicted to

their phones. Which means that students have developed a tendency to be looking at their phone

screen for the majority of the class period when they seem to be “bored” or find what they are

learning not interesting enough that is worth their attention. Checking their phone disrupts their

learning and not only is it hard for the student to understand what is being taught but it makes it

harder for the teacher as well to communicate with the student if their focus is somewhere else.

Some may argue that technology helps us improve our learning skills and capacities and

it encourages us to keep making advancements to help make changes in our society. It is

important for kids to learn at a young age because it will eventually benefit us when we become

of age to use the adequate technology to help us in our classes and in homework. Technology has

come so far that it makes things like transportation, access to information more accessible to

students to make their lives and their teachers lives easier. These are only some of the opposing

side would say but in reality the more we become dependent in technology the harder it will get
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for us to actually be able to interact, learn, focus, nd critically think. Being too dependent will

only keep stealing our identities little by little until there isn’t anything left but a screen.

In conclusion, although technology has been able to create and era in which we have

many resources at our fingertips we are faced with a choice of living a different lifestyle were we

either are dependent of technology and risk and lose the most crucial things we’ve learned or

decide to live a life were the amount of time we spend in front of a screen is limited so we can

make the most of what we have around us. Yes, there are many benefits to being surrounded by

technology, but it won’t always be the same result and as technology keeps advancing we are

only creating a world like the ones we see in television or in movies. Being a critical thinker, a

good communicator, and being engaged in what we are learning help us form our own identity

without it being taken from us or being given to us without a choice. Creating our own identity

can help us create connections between us and other which can completely change our

perspective to how our lives should be lived with the growing influence of technology at our

hands.
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Works Cited

“Children, Teens, and Entertainment Media.” Education Digest, vol. 78, no. 8, Apr. 2013, pp.

21–30. EBSCOhost, Accessed Sep 26,2018

Rahman, Shakiratul Hanany Abd, “Can’t Live without my FB, LoL: The Influence of Social

Networking Sites on the Communication Skills of TESL Students”​ Procedia - Social and

Behavioral Sciences, 15 May 2014, Vol.134, pp.213-219 Accessed Sep 26,2018

“Technology addiction disrupts teenage learning.”(IT News and Products)(Brief article)

Database and Network Journal, Oct, 2009, Vol.39(5), p.23(1), Accessed Sep 26,2018

Carr, Nicholas ; Norvig, Peter, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, New York Times Upfront, Oct

4, 2010, Vol.143(3), p.22 Accessed Sep 26,2018