OPINION: Impact of technology depends on usage

The world of technology has taken over and it is starting to impact younger generations more and more in the way we learn and handle social situations. The industry and use of technology has evolved into a whole new animal with the grown dependence that our society has on it.

Almost every high schooler has at least one personal device of their own, and now many elementary school children can be seen with a cell phone as well. When I was in elementary school, I did not get my phone until the end of sixth grade, and this was a rule for both myself and many of my friends.

As I have gotten older, it is easy to notice that text messaging and Snapchatting has led to a decrease in socialization among teens.

“Society has lost personal conversation and interacting with other people without the help of technology,” senior Vin Nemchick said. “You can now see people glued to their phones sitting right next to each other.”

Even our schools have evolved. Students utilize laptops and even their phones to help them with their school work. Going back even 10 years, computers were rarely used in the classroom.

Today, our generation is moving in the right direction as classrooms began to incorporate iPhones. The students of today and tomorrow are impacted by technology and schools need to begin to prepare students for the skills they need in the real world.

“Technology has completely changed how we learn because I use my Chromebook all day and I get a lot more done with it,” senior Anthony Bellomo said.

In the past, our parents had to write everything by hand and the thought of “sharing” an assignment or a Google Doc was nowhere to be found. The amount of resources and media outlets that we can now access with Internet on any device is an extremely valuable asset. People used to have to go to libraries and search through other materials to find an answer they were looking for, but now all we have to do is put something into Google and out pops the answer.

Despite there being many positive affects from technology, many negatives come from excessive use of it.

Parenting has transformed by the plethora of devices that their children have access to. You can regularly see 3-year-olds glued to their iPads either watching their favorite TV show or playing a favorite game.

Parents who give their kids a tablet just for the sake of keeping them busy, however, is not useful. Rather, we need to keep them occupied with either interactive learning apps or TV shows that provide some form of educational benefit. Giving students a cell phone or iPad just to keep them busy or entertained is unproductive and an inefficient use of the capabilities that technology provides us.

I grew up with a computer and as phones were becoming a greater commodity, and everything technology provides our generation with will only continue to get more advanced in the future. It is just the beginning of this blossoming industry and we will be here to experience the whole ride. With the rapidly increasing net that technology has cast, society will have to adapt to the good and bad that comes from it.