In less than eighty years, the technology available to the civilian population has made upgrades of epic proportions. From a beastly chunk of machinery that takes up an entire room and has very few abilities to a handheld device that has potentially infinite capabilities and is as light as a feather, is there such a thing as too much? Yes, most everything in life has a fine line that separates the good from the bad, in this case the helpful from the harmful. Students today rely too heavily upon the crutch of technology, and tend to dance all over that line.
Technology is invented to make a task easier to accomplish; however, some devices have gone too far in their endeavors and have instead inspired laziness. Some cutting edge apps that have been released will write papers for you and even verbally remind you of your appointments like an electronic personal assistant. Some find that technology is helpful because it can be used as an educational resource; however, this resource is highly abused by many students. It is one of the reasons any form of technology, such as eReaders and tablets, is still not school approved. Many high school students are simply not mature enough to handle the responsibility of staying focused and on task when faced with a bright screen of limitless possibilities. Even now when schools don’t allow personal technology, students break the rules and use these devices during class to play Angry Birds and text their friends sitting in the same building.
Technology has allowed for much greater ease of access to information, which may seem to be a positive aspect. It’s actually the devil in disguise. My grandparents used to tell my parents, “Look it up”, if they had a question. This normally involved cracking open the encyclopedia and physically searching for the information and then committing it to memory. Now my parents always respond to my questions with, “Google it.” This takes a few clicks and having the information brought to us. Memorizing facts has become a thing of the past and has caused our brains to become dust collectors.
Because attaining facts from the internet is so simple and can be done practically anywhere, kids of this age tend to let the computer do the thinking for them. Many assignments I have received from my teachers can be found online. The exact assignment. Answers included. A less honest person wouldn’t use them as a way to check the answers, and instead just copy them. This allows for practically no ingenuity and cuts out the thought process, a critical workout for your brain that keeps it on edge. It also leads to plagiarism, a serious offense in the educational system as well as the national legal system. Plagiarism is becoming a prevalent issue in high schools, because students lack the diligence to try to understand the concept and put it their own words.
At what point can we call our society too technologically advanced that it distracts away from true learning and knowledge? When will the disadvantages of technology overwhelm the advantages in education? Our society’s mass of electronic devices has already crossed over onto the educationally harmful side. It is just a matter of how far we push it. It comes down to student responsibility and desire for knowledge.