Technological Advancements

Every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. This is the Newtonian third law, and one of the laws that govern the operation of the universe. Therefore, the rapid growth and technological Advancements in our world as we know it is meant to have a ripple effect on us humans, interact and influence us and our environment, positively and negatively.

This is an article written to outline and explain some major occurrences that technological advancements have induced in our everyday life. We hope to fulfill our goals in you by spreading useful knowledge inclined at imbibing all interested readers with insights into fortunes and misfortunes the effect of technology in our society has born and bred. But first, what do you understand as the meaning of technology?

We would define technological Advancements as the application of knowledge previously known, recently, or accidentally discovered, to invent something usable in a specific field or field, especially in applied sciences. Wikitionary.org gave a more simplified definition of technology as the organization of knowledge for practical purposes, and its etymology as being coined from the Greek words tékhnē (art) and logía (the study of something).

Table of Contents

Beneficial Effects Of Technology

Health Upgrade

is one of the most important benefits of technological advancements brought to the round table. There used to be a time when ailments as little as fever from malaria proved most fatal with almost no hope of recovery. But right now, there are hundreds of really effective drugs with the potential to cure a patient in just a few days, machines capable of aiding thousands of research and manufacturing effective drugs in a short time.

Today, the presence of bio-engineering and genetic engineering technology has gone a long way in influencing humanity as we know it. So far so good, genetic engineering has played role in reducing the chances of getting some genetically inherited diseases like diabetes, etc and even helped work towards finally getting an effective cure for cancer.

Bio-engineering on its own has led to the research and invention of some state-of-the-art technological human parts and gadgets (e.g pacemakers for the heart, bionic arms for amputees). Technological advancement has also proven useful in successful major surgeries and the time taken to synthesize vaccines against deadly viruses.

Research Advancements

Almost every discovery and invention is a result of purposeful, meticulous research. Keep that in mind. Though some were made accidentally, it’s just a trivial number at most. Real numbers were discovered and invented because man needed them. But guess what made it possible and easier for man? TECHNOLOGY! As a gifted animal on the mental plane, man invents lots of theories, but research needed for implementation of these theories, depends greatly on what technology we have available at the time.

The rapid advancement of technology magnanimously aided the research that built a rocket and put a man in space. Right now, we have unmanned drones on Mars, and research going on to discover how habitable the planet is. Technology has equally aided medical research, and engineering research (such as genetically engineering plants to try to produce more healthy strains of crops). There is actually no limit to the level of research made possible by the right technology.

Easier Life

Let’s look at this scenario, I need to see my wife, and I am two cities away. Oh! I have a mobile phone, we can just see and chat through video calls. Well if this was the 15BC, God so help you! You must trek. Okay, you need to get out of town quickly, you don’t trek or book a chariot, you drive a car or book a flight, get to your destination in hours at most, instead of days or weeks. Real easy right? Now the advancement from booking a chariot to booking a flight years later is one of the real examples of technological advancement.

Technology also catapulted us from hours of searching for information in the library to seconds of surfing the internet. Information and knowledge are now within the grasp of both patricians and plebeians. The easy access to information eliminates the idea of true knowledge being only for the patricians alone. Talk about making it easier for the common man.

Easier Income Generation

We would have agreed on the fact that technological advancement creates employment, but an increase in technology also takes jobs too as people are replaced with machines that do their jobs more effectively. So this would be a double-edged sword. Therefore, it would be better if we settle for a samurai katana with a single sharp edge. We can all agree technology has made income generation a whole lot easier.

Take me for example, I am writing this article from the comfort of my bed, with my Android phone, and getting paid to do it. Remember, the Kardashian sister, Kylie Jenner, is a social media influencer/entrepreneur now worth billions of dollars because of the fame she acquired online, resulting in easy advertising of her cosmetics online.

The internet today has created lots of billionaires, the current richest man and first centenary billionaire we had in the 21st century, and the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, makes his money from the internet! Online marketing. All of these are a result of the rapid increase in technology we have seen today.

Negative Effects Of Technological Advancements

Distractions

Technology provides room for extreme relaxation which encourages a pleasant escape for the ideal lazy man and waste of resourceful time. I would use myself as an example so you can get an inkling of what distractions truly are. I am a guy who loves to read novels and do research online when am not busy gathering life experience on the field, but, I am also a movie lunatic, I have this heightened desire to view blockbusters, and can spend a whole day going through movies after movies. By the time I am done, I would have wasted productive time relaxing.

To put more oxygen to the fire, the invention of media playing phones, laptops, DVDs, and especially IMAX 3D didn’t help in any way. It took me years and so much wasted time to be able to develop the right control. Now, what of console gamers, social media addicts, and a whole lot of people obsessed with gadgets? Look around you! It wouldn’t take a genius to know that a lot of useful time and productivity are wasted on the distractions of technology.

Reduces Privacy

for almost all individuals, Privacy is a necessity. That is the reason we put on clothes, live in opaque houses, and keep our affairs personal. A release of your personal life to the wrong hands could lead to all forms of blackmail, identity theft, material theft, and other forms of crimes too. These crimes on personal privacy were quite difficult until technology made everything easier.

You could spy on someone and get as much personal detail by mounting hidden cams or hacking into their systems. Social media has also helped in letting private details be released for all to easily see too. Any decent hacker with the right knowledge can break into that private life you uploaded to the cloud. So millions have to be spent by companies to maintain a strong firewall to prevent the release of valid information to these cyber-criminals. And technological evolution made this possible.

Weapons Of Mass Destruction

This is a major problem of Technological advancements. Wars must be fought, and we all need to win. Gone are the days when better weaponry was judged by how sharp your blades were, or how durable your shields were. Now to be a force to reckon with, you must possess mighty artilleries capable of wiping off cities in mere seconds. All ‘sarcastic’ thanks are given to nuclear weapons. From the pistols, rapid-fire assault rifles, 50 Calibre machine guns capable of firing more than 200 rounds in a minute and leveling a building in minutes, to the atomic, hydrogen, and fusion bombs capable of wasting all life forms in more than one city,

Wikipedia gave us an illustration about Albert Einstein He said, “I do not know what weapons world war three would be fought, but world war four would be fought with sticks and stones”. The truth is so many terrible, humanity-destructive weapons exist that, if we fight a third world war with these weapons, we will surely lose billions of lives and end civilization as we know it. It will plunge us back to the stone ages

Ecological Pollution

This nightmare was a child born from the emergence of the industrial age. Huge smoking machines, and the development of industries as a result of technologies. Right now we have millions of vehicles, generators, and lots of factories, pumping harmful gases into the atmosphere. We want a lot of Technological machinery for our benefit right?

Guess what? It comes with a cost, and our ecosystem continuously pays the price. Let’s look at these eco-pollutions, ozone layer depletion, global warming, air pollution like smogs, massive deforestation for urbanization, and the explosion of nuclear plants like in Chornobyl, which brought about a barren, uninhabited land for years. Technologies, though it does a lot, we equally pay a price.

Conclusion

Nothing worthwhile is easily done. As the common saying goes, “you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” We would make mistakes during our transition with technological advancements, but there would be major gains too. We need only figure out a way to reduce its negative impact, generally or individually. Everyone has a role to play. I hope you all learned something from this. Thank you for your time.

References

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