Kayleena Calm

English 110

Jesse Miller

30 Oct 2023

Technology has impacted many people and who they are in today’s society. The potential it has to affect people even more in the future is huge. The effect that technology has on people is seen as negative. Of course, there are some negative effects technology has on people, but it has also impacted people in positive ways too. To get a final opinion, both the positives and negatives must be mentioned. There are two authors who have different opinions on technology. The first person is Sherry Turkle, who wrote an introduction to her book called “Empathy Diaries.” They believe technology stops people from having actual relationships and conversations. The other person is Sam Anderson. He wrote an article called, “In Defense of Distraction.” In the article he talks about how he believes that technology is not at fault and people are to blame for how we interact with technology.

Even though Turkle and Anderson do not agree on everything, they do agree on some negative aspects about technology. They both believe that distractions come with having technology. Although Anderson says that humans are at fault for how they react to technology, that does not mean that there are not distractions with technology. For these last years, neurology labs have diagnosed absence in more children every year. That is one thing Anderson mentions. Turkle agrees that there are many distractions. She mentions that phones distract people from having an actual conversation. Turkle even quotes a dean of a high school saying, “Students don’t seem to be making friendships as before. They make acquaintances, but their connections seem superficial.” What that quote is saying is that kids are so distracted by phones, that they do not actually get to know people well enough to make relationships with these people. Instead, they talk to people for a minute but never actually get to know them, and then just go on their phones when they cannot come up with anything to talk about. This brings up another point that Turkle brings up. She says, “We are being silenced by our technologies- in a way, “cured of talking”.” She believes that technology is not allowing us to talk, and again have conversations with people. I agree with both Turkle and Anderson, in a sense that technology is distracting. I will admit that I get distracted by technology at times especially while in class and I cannot see the time, I just always want to be checking it to see how much longer I have. I do not agree with Turkle when saying that friendships are more of acquaintances these days, and that we are being silenced by technology. There are so many people that I talk to, and I love to get to know more about. I always get to know people before I call them my friends, and I am lucky enough to have people here and back home that I get to call my friends. There are many times where I do not go on my devices with my friends, there will always be times where I do, but more so than not I am not on my phone while being with them. The next point is that I do not think that people are being silenced by technology. Of course, there are times where people go on technology while talking but there are other ways that technology is not silencing us. Ever since the internet has become huge, I have noticed more people speaking about problems around the world. There are now so many people who will stand up for what they believe in.

There are quite a couple negative impacts technology has made on today’s society. The first one is that some people will ignore others while going on their phones. Even when having a conversation with their friends or family members and then go on their phones right after. When they’re on their phones, some people might try and start a conversation, but the people might not be listening while being on their phones. I have done that myself. There have been quite a few times where I have gone on my phone and have not paid attention to my friends or family members and have to ask them to repeat themselves. This leads to people not wanting to have actual in-person conversations with others. So many now prefer texting over calling or facetiming. When people text it’s not always even full sentences, many people use abbreviations. After texting for so long some people, including myself at times, get scared or anxious to call someone, like to order food, or to set up a doctor’s appointment. Even after 18 or 19 years old, people will still have their parents set up their appointments for them. How will you even be able to set up appointments for your possible future child if you cannot set one up for yourself?