MERITS AND DEMERITS OF TECHNOLOGY

Merits & Demerits of Technology

My previous article Technology Gap Across Generations published on 31^st Dec 2020 was about a brief discussion of my personal experience regarding the effects of technology on different age groups in society. Indeed, the phenomenal effect is present at almost every family/home therefore it was highly appreciated and viewed by 100s of people.   Thank you!!! 

 This article is in the continuation of a previous article in which we will discuss the Merits & Demerits of Technology. But before getting into the topic we need to understand the main causes of resistance for any invention or technological revolution. Will be briefly discussing the factors of Skepticism & My Personal Experiences.

Skepticism

Skepticism About Inventions

The new change always created doubts and according to the social point of view, historically four kinds of criticism were always being faced:

1. Will benefit the future generation and doesn’t protect us from the wrath of the current ones.
2. A shift of paradigm from old beliefs to the new ones.
3. The impact of new inventions or technology will only benefit a small section of society, while the risks of creating an imbalance on the society.
4. When it is felt that the benefits will accrue for a short period

We had been facing social ostracism since the invention of the Wheel. If we read the biography of scientists who had delivered the greatest inventions including Aristotle, Issac Newton, Al Beruni, etc, they had faced social ostracism, boycott, direct attacks, and many were even killed.

No Wheels Protest

But what had happened then, almost all were accepted over time and here we are in a modern world having the theories presented in the past till practical implementation. For example:

• Technological controversies ranging from attacks on coffee in the Medieval Middle East and Europe is today debating on the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence, drones, 3-D printing.

• For nearly 400 years, Ottoman rulers opposed the printing of the Quran. But when the printed word seemed to reinforce the power of the rulers they slowly went against previous fatwas banning the printing of the Quran.

• The introduction of tractors in the USA was hardly the paragon of farm efficiency. Tractors offered little advantage over horses. Some opponents argued that their value could be marginally improved if they could reproduce themselves like horses.

• But on the other hand, social fear also has various real evidence & reasons; just recall the invention of Mobil Phones first time, Motorola when introduced in the USA in 1983 was only for the rich class because it cost $4000 that is equivalent to more than $12000 today. 

My Personal Experiences:

It was 2005, I being the head of the IT section in one of the UN projects, was assigned to deploy a customized database; FICS (Financial & Inventory Control System). The concept was to have a paperless environment with complete computerization of Finance & Inventory departments.  I remember that literally, the employees of the finance section had several discussions with me regarding the fear of down-sizing after the implementation of the software; which was just a rumor.

2017-18 when supervising the project of ONLINE CLASSES in a university-funded by Higher Education Commission of Pakistan; the faculty was unwilling for project execution i.e. 1. They would be learning & interact with the technology that they never had used.  2. They would be exposed to many for evaluation.  3. Fear of losing jobs in the future.  We had done a lot to convince them but finally, the project was failed.

Therefore; like a huge old age class in a society who has fear of loneliness and feeling less literate in modern technology, perhaps this fear is not only limited to a specific class or age group but everyone in its age group, domain, or class have particular fear factors. 

The Way-Forward

“People are very open-minded about new things— as long as they’re exactly like the old ones.”

CHARLES KETTERING

The best solution is Public Education & Awareness Campaigns that might lead to its acceptance and adoption in society.  New technologies must find new ways for contributing to social causes which would also explore the new ways of Social Entrepreneurship.  The perception of benefits and risks of any invention can’t be fully understood or get successful without understanding the advocacy of human psychology, otherwise, the new technology will be misinterpreted which would become the reason for fears & phobias in society and turn into social resistance. 

THE MERITS & DEMERITS

There are plenty of material available related to the merits & demerits of technology, however; here we would be discussing the personal social factors of our life in the continuation of the previous article:

Kids Using Technology (age group 2-6 years):

Kids Using Technology (age group 2-6 years)

MERITS: Kids today have several logical reasoning, the art of questioning, choices, using scientific terminologies, virtual communication & exposure to various things that we didn’t have in our times.  I have noticed that instead of school they quickly & easily learn from devices say: number counting from mobile battery charging, name spelling, the concept of Email address/login-id/password, subscriptions, downloading apps from play store, browsing, chatting, connecting devices with Wi-Fi, 4G, HDMI, USB, Hotspot, LAN; they are aware of all these and many more. We learned & used these in late ages. 

 

A survey found that 85% of parents allow their children under age 6 to use technology at home and it tends to be a learning tool for children’s early year development process. Early year development affects future cognitive, social, emotional, language, and physical development, while using gadgets not only having entertainment but on the other side it develops their hand-eye coordination, motor skills, critical thinking, decision making, information, and exposure. Children who are tech-savvy will allow them for school readiness and be better prepared for a workforce that will be predominantly digital.

Demerits: at these stages children need to learn social skills & behaviors.  They need the undivided attention of their parents & teachers. But all of the above are gradually lacking.  I have seen children get hyper & unable to tolerate conversation or sitting idle for some time.  As per medical sciences research; technology is raising unbalance lifestyles in kids because they are connected to Hyper World.  They get bored and unhappy without access to gadgets and the internet.  A daily routine of playing, eating, school timing, and face-to-face communication has been badly affected.  They started living in the virtual world. Chhota Bheem, Spiderman, Doraemon, and many more cartoon series are developing adverse reactions to their personalities.  Besides children's hyper attitude we have seen several shreds of evidence of anxiety, eye-side problems, fatness, deficiency of Vitamin-D, etc. 

 

Children Using Technology (age group 7-20 years):

Merits: I remember from 1996 till 2005 being a faculty member of different institutions, we used to offer training in Microsoft Windows & Office. 

That was a high-tech trend at those times and senior officials were the main participants. But with the passage of time all had vanished. The reason being is these applications became very user-friendly and easy to learn AND taught at a very early stage at the school level.  

Obviously when my daughter in Grade-4 prepares PowerPoint presentations for school assignments and my son in Grade-6 is learning computer programming meant that IT skills development brought on very young ages.  If so, then why shouldn’t we expect our children to be experts in IT and learn faster than us when everything is just away on a few clicks at Google.

Be Ready! there’s more to come through the implementation of the STEM system at school

“STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Rather than teach the four disciplines as separate and discrete subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications.”

You can explore the seriousness & importance of STEM education in the USA by President Obama’s YouTube video and get more info from this report:  Progress Report on the Implementation of The Federal Stem Education Strategic Plan

But in Pakistan, it will take plenty of time, however; few training institutions had started the STEM course. Although few private schools claim to have STEM in their syllabus but that is just an ICT integration into the syllabus and I personally had not seen it yet.  Subsequently; I am doing research on STEM and soon will publish an article specifically on STEM system in Pakistani Institutions.

Through this, we can understand what would be the understanding of technology at a very early age of children in the future. 

Demerits: besides several health issues, kids in these ages are not willing to have physical activities and leads them to weaker bones & muscles. They don’t react or communicate with the same age groups or elders as we did in our childhood due to less social interaction.  An alarming fact is that what are they exposed to or what contents are they viewing, we don’t know because all the time we can’t sit with them. At a very younger age, they view/know the things that are not appropriate at their age level.  Besides PUBG game virtual learning, they are on a mission of fighting & killing.  These games hypnotize them and develop a fanatic conscious mind.  We have real evidence of Blue Whale which was also known as an online suicide game for teenagers. 

Don’t let your children alone!!!

Adults Using Technology:

Merits:

talking about our age group; how could we stop ourselves from technology that is prevalent in various domains such as communication, financial transactions, security, home management, education, health, business everywhere in our society. Even though it has become a misperception that people in old ages (over 60) are averse to adopt new technologies, infect much older are taking benefits of computers & the internet.

Technology has revolutionized every field in the world. Just imagine our daily routine that how much we are dependent on technology: we wake-up by alarm, offer prayer according to clock-time, go to office by car, use computer, telephone-ext, mobile and TV at the office, sharing info through the internet, use running machines in gym, electricity, gas, doctor, medical report, airplane, even every aspect of life is connected with technology and also providing us plenty of benefits. 

Demerits: we also are facing health issues, anxiety, social gap, dependency, pollution, laziness, etc

This Is What We Are Experiencing In Near Future