A major question being asked across the globe is related to technology and how much we rely on it for even some of the most basic day to day tasks. In this article we will look at how much we use technology and how it has improved but also in some ways potentially hindered our day to day lives.
Social Media
Social media is one of the biggest uses of technology and continues to be a decisive and open ended topic to discuss. Over the last 20 years social media has expanded from websites online to mobile applications and websites in order to draw more people in. This coupled with the massive rise in popularity of the smartphone has led to billions of people across the world signing up to social media platforms in order to stay in contact with friends as well as join different communities online.
One of the main benefits of social media is that it can allow communication between people in separate countries. This allows people who stay far away from loved ones to keep in touch. Another benefit of social media is it allows people to stay in touch with their friends without being too intrusive as they may post regular updates to the website.
On the other hand as well as the positives of social media there are of course the negatives. One negative of social media is it can be highly addictive which means that people may spend several hours a day on it and feel unable to stop due to being addicted to using the website or application.
This addiction can lead to the development of negative feelings as well as compounding mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety. It should be remembered that social media is peoples lives seen through a filter where the best bits are cherry picked to be seen by others.
Instead of using social media to contact people there are alternative means of communication such as sending a letter or organising a time and place to meet someone. In many cases people use social media to substitute for meeting someone due to busy schedules.
Satellite Navigation
Satellite navigation a.k.a sat nav is a very popular option on cars and other vehicles and is used to guide people to their destination. However one of the main issues with satellite navigation is it does sometimes get things wrong. This can prove to be serious for drivers as they could take a wrong turn or even go through a bus lane or the wrong way down a street they are unfamiliar with as a result.
Although having said this generally speaking satellite navigation is very accurate and is a great asset for drivers who are driving in unfamiliar countries or roads. In previous generations drivers would have asked people for directions or consulted a road map. Road maps helped to improve peoples overall navigational skills.
Summary
To conclude it can be said that technology does play a major role in society today and we have become too accustomed to it. If for any reason there was a large scale outage of technology services for a small period of time people would struggle to adapt as they lack the basic skills to do so.