THE EFECTS OF

TECHNOLOGY

Rembrand Paul Pardo Castro

Salt Lake Community College
English 1010
Teacher: Tyler Barnum

2
Introduction
Technology is all around us, and almost every single person has or uses a piece of technology on
a daily basis. Nowadays, our society has become almost dependent to these machines, and the
new generations of kids are growing with an amazing accessibility to technology. But the actual
widely use of electronic devices hasnt been always like this, thus technology is modifying
society. A better understanding of how technology is affecting us will determine the path of the
new generations and the future of humanity.
The innovation in machines is present in our lives in many different ways, therefore it affects
different aspects of society. Aspects such as job market, military force, and interactions in social
and family relations are the ones observed in this paper. Well study the concerns and
preoccupations of some people who consider that technology is affecting negatively
communities and society in general. In this paper will look the opinion of some authors who
discuss whether these new machines are good or bad.

3
There are a lot of people concerned about the rapid increase in technology and some of
them are even against it. One of the most controversial topics about technology is whether
machines are diminishing the number of jobs or not, and how these affect labor market. Ben
Miller and Robert D. Atkinson use the term Luddite for those persons who resist adopting new
technology in their paper Are Robots Taking Our Jobs, or Making Them?(3). They specifically
discus about the relevance of the production technology creates and the effects on the labor
market. It is completely true that high productivity caused by new technology is changing the
labor force, but this has always been a factor that society has had to deal with. Over the last
century whenever unemployment rates have risen there have always been some who blame the
machines. Some even argued we were heading toward mass permanent unemployment (Miller
and Atkinson, 2). The authors state that this fear of technology replacing all possible activities a
human could do has been present in the past. Others like Gary Marcus, author of the article,
Will a Robot Take Your Job also talks about this fear and how its been present in America
every time there are modifications in the jobs. He uses the example of the agricultural work to
point out that technology moves and creates jobs into different fields. As he puts it in his words
Two hundred years ago, 70 percent of American workers lived on the farm. Today automation
has eliminated all but 1 percent of their jobs, replacing them (and their work animals) with
machines. But the displaced workers did not sit idle. Instead, automation created hundreds of
millions of jobs in entirely new fields. Throughout history the improvement of technology has
been modifying the labor market, jobs moved from agriculture to manufacturing, and then from
manufacturing to services, and this process will continue. Miller and Atkinson state that
technology creates high productivity, in other words, with the help of machinery less people
produces more. This results at the same time in savings that can be expended in other fields. This

4
economic activity in turn creates demand that other companies (e.g., restaurants, bookstores,
movie theaters, and hotels) respond to by hiring more workers. In other words, raising the
productivity of one industry increases demand, either in that industry or all the other industries in
aggregate. (Miller and Atkinson, 11)
Even if the savings from productivity dont get spent by consumers and for some reason
are saved, this will still create jobs, assuming that the economy is not in recession. The reason is
that increased savings lead to lower interest rates which in turn lead to increased investment. As
these authors state in their paper, innovation in technology will generate more jobs, and if the
production is big could generate international benefits Automation will also produce some new
jobs in firms that sell the new robots or other labor-saving technology. This means that, in
general, there will be an overall shift in the economy in the direction of higher-skill and higherwage jobs. Moreover, if the United States becomes a leader in producing productivity-enhancing
technology, it will experience a growth in jobs serving foreign markets (11).
... Another factor that concerns people, especially people who havent grown with
technology as a constant factor of their lives, is that younger generations are at an advantageous
position. With the rapid increase and development of technology people fear that the only jobs
available would be those with high level of education and those with high knowledge of the new
machines. A number of studies worldwide have shown that older adults generally lag behind
younger ones in adoption of new technology. This is particularly true for use of computer
systems. So for older workers, technology has both advantages and drawbacks. On the one hand,
automation processes can minimize the need for demanding physical labor as strength wanes
with age, also electronic devices can help improve performance and circulation of information.
Of course any technology process requires significant instruction and training, which often

5
results a challenge for older workers. Author Neil Charness, discusses in his paper Work, Older
Workers, and Technology about this issue in the labor market. Charness defends that training of
the people with less knowledge of the new technology would help balance the disadvantage and
help the unemployment that technology may cause, as he puts it Successful use of a technology
system depends on the extent to which the system demands can be met by the users capabilities.
Given normative changes with age in sensory, perceptual, psychomotor, and cognitive
capabilities, older workers can be a disadvantage relative to their younger counterparts.
However, better training and design can help level the playing field for older workers. For
instance, choosing the right input device can minimize age difference in performance with the
menu-driven software applications. (27)
However, Miller and Atkinson consider that technology could take a long time until it
automatizes some sector of the job market. As they state Many sectors, such as construction,
nursing homes, police and fire, and janitorial services, have been experiencing slow or even
declining productivity, and it is unclear how technology will turn the situation around. We could
eventually see fully automated construction systems or cleaning services, but if this ever comes
about it will be a gradual process, dependent on innumerable technical challenges as well as
economic ones like finding economies of scale. In other words, industries involved in human
services and non-routine physical tasks are very hard to automate (23). This difficulty of
automatization of some jobs would leave opportunities for people with little or basic knowledge
of the new technologies. Algorithms may slowly replace some knowledge-based jobs, but most
of them are a long way from automation, because machines are not yet intelligent enough. This
fact is another reason of why machines and robots wont take over our jobs.

6
Some people fear that machines are becoming more and more intelligent and therefore
one day they might replace jobs where high levels of education are needed. The author Jonathan
Cohn states in his paper The robot will see you now that machines have become an important
part of our daily lives and that machines are indeed becoming smarter and smarter. One example
of this is the International Business Machines Watson, a machine used in medicine, capable of
processing up to 60 million pages of text per second, different kind of information and make
recommendation much more quickly, and more intelligently, than any machine before. This
machines purpose is the one of diagnosing patients and assessing results to their different issues
based on the information that the machine possess. Cohn defends that technology is developing
in an exponential way. Technology that a few decades ago were unimaginable are available to
almost everybody and machines more powerful than computers in the 90s are in our pockets.
However he states that machines are built by professionals, by people with high levels of
education and that they are going to be always needed. Therefore technology can only be a tool
to help and support. He also agrees with Miller and Atkinson on that technology simply modifies
jobs and not takes over, as he states in his paper, talking about technology in medicine I do not
think physicians will be seeing patients as much in the future. I think they are transitioning into
what I see as Super-quality-control officers, these machines are more a clinical support tool
rather than decision making tool (67).

Another important factor that many people worry about is the war, or better said how
technology affects the way wars are fought. In the same way that technology can change the
labor market it also can with the military equipment and armament, and with this comes an
ethical dilemma. As I mentioned before technology is developing rapidly and even more in the

7
last decades, this creates a general use of the new technologies. For example before Global
Positioning System (GPS) was widely used for regular people this was a system design just for
military purposes, this was the same case for the Internet. As Malcom Lucard states in his paper
Programmed for war that high technology, and new weapons are becoming more accessible
we are at the cusp of a new kind of arms race in which the weapons in question are relatively
small, cheap, easy to produce but extremely difficult to regulate, everybody will have
this technology. This easy accessibility to more deadly arms could create a social problem of
security. But even if we accomplish a good regulation and control of these weapons, when times
of war come these regulations wouldnt be useful. In these exist so many powerful and
destructive weapons that could kill entire cities in matter of minutes. In the past soldiers killed
other soldiers in the battle fields but now because of technology there are no boundaries to the
war zones. So the question that comes from this is, is it worth it? Development in new machines
like robots, drones, and automatic machines could lead to a different form of war that probably
we are not prepared for. Lucard defends these new machines require regulations and limits and
that there many questions to be answered before using them. He states Robotic, automated or
fully autonomous weapon systems also poses serious questions: As more of the targeting and
firing functions of these machines are automated, will these highly efficient killing machines be
able to make the necessary distinctions between combatants and military targets on the one hand
and civilians on the other? And if an autonomous or automated weapon does commit a violation
of the rules of war who will be held responsible? The commander who sent the drone or robot
into battle or the manufacturer of the software that runs the robot? This is related to what we
observed earlier with Cohn, machines cannot make decisions. But this doesnt just concern
machines, development in technology has enabled the advance in biology, chemistry and the

8
creation of new drugs. Col. Dave Shun discuss in his article Ethics and the Enhanced Soldier of
the Near Future about how new drugs are used in soldiers and the ethical problem behind this.
New ethical challenges are arising from the technological developments in stem cells, genetics,
neurosciences, robotics, and information technology. (94) Shun talks more specifically about the
enhancement which is an increase or improvement in quality, value, or extent. One of the first
large-scale attempts to enhance soldiers was in the German army in the World War II. Military
provided a stimulant called Pervitin to soldiers in combat. Pervitin, a methamphetamine, was
generally viewed as a proven drug to be used when soldiers were likely to be subjected to
extreme stress. (93) The soldiers who used the drug ended up addicted to Pervitin. Shun suggests
that in the same way that new killing machines are questionable and that it should exist some
limits in these machines so should be control over developments of new drugs and in the use on
soldiers. Because some enhancements may be experimental or pose long-term health risks,
should military enhancements be reversible? If they become irreversible, could some
enhancementsregardless of immediate benefits for the military missioneventually violate the
basic rights of soldiers by inhibiting their prospects for leading a normal life following their
service.

On aspect that probably is more present and touches us more directly is the impact of
technology on peoples dynamics of relationships and sociability. Sarah M. Long points out two
different hypotheses about the way digital technologies affect society in her paper Exploring
Web 2.0: The Impact of Digital Communications Technologies on Youth Relationships and
Sociability she states There are two main rival hypotheses: the first claims that Internet culture
fosters more isolation and disconnection among youth, while the second claims that these new

9
technologies create a hyper-connectivity that widens and will potentially revolutionize social
interactions (17). By one part, some argue that interaction among people, especially young
ones, is shrinking due to the fact that relationship are increasingly conducted via cell phones, text
messaging, instant messaging, Internet social networking sites and blogs, therefore their ability
to develop and maintain social skills and relationships are affected, and maybe weakened. For
the other part, people consider that the new communication technologies help to facilitate
communication and allow people to reach other people quickly and in multiple ways. This
therefore helps to create new relationships and maintain contact with those we already have
relation. (Long, 5). However, it is an open question whether connections carried out through
digital media including email, text messaging, instant messaging, and social networking sites are
as intimate and satisfying as face-to-face interactions. Another important question is the impact
the Internet can have for people who lack strong social skills in the first place. The Internet might
help individuals with low psychological well-being due to few ties to friends and neighbors.
Some forms of computer-mediated communication can lower barriers to interaction and
encourage more self-disclosure. (Long, 11). For some people then, having a screen between you
and the person you are communicating with fosters greater social confidence, which can then
increase connectivity and the desire to socialize. Long also says that for those people who were
used to socializing without the help of the new technologies are more likely to keep a normal and
regular socialization with people and that technology is simple a tool that helps these people to
become even more social if possible. However she states that different situation where the
communication technologies are used is a key factor to understand how technology affects
society, as she puts it Internet use at home has a strong negative impact on time spent with
friends and family as well as time spent on social activities, but Internet use at work has no such

10
effect. Additionally, Internet use on the weekend is related to decreased sociability (12). To this
the author Alessondra Villegas states in her paper The Influence of Technology on Family
Dynamics that the effects of technology on society, and specifically on families, depends more
in the relationship between people before the use of these machines rather than the situation or
context. That is, technology just enriches relationships in families that speed time, and
interaction. Villegas states specifically talking about the use of television as an activity to form
stronger bonds in the family It is important to recognize that prior to using television viewing as
a family activity, the family had previously enjoyed spending time together and suggested a
close familial relationship. Television viewing as a family can be regarded as a communal
activity with the potential of enhancing family relationships in cases where the family is already
considered a close unit (9). One concern within the relationship of families is the notion that
parents are using media as a babysitter. If you have gone out to eat at a restaurant in the past
couple of years, the chances are pretty high that you have witnessed a parent handing over an
iPhone to the toddler having a tantrum in the middle of dinner. (Villegas, 6) As the example
above demonstrates, it is becoming an increasingly common practice for parents to use media to
babysit their children. This a big problem for society because the new generation are growing up
with machines as parents. Using technology to distract little kids is not new, in the past parents
used Tv to control their child. But now technology has become so powerful that we can carry
little Tvs with us all the time and these electronic devices have become answer machines. We
can find almost every answer for every question, by typing in the machines the information
wanted. As we mention before this is an issue for some families because the lack of attention in
the kids, and the focus of attention on these machines by part of the little ones, will lead to a less
connection and relation in the families. Kids will require to these answer machines when they

11
have vital question. Questions that must be answered by parents. Villegas states that studies have
found that spending time as a family has several critical benefits for a childs development
including: physical, social, emotional, academic, behavioral and for overall development of
family connection (7).

We observed in the different papers and articles, and as all the authors agree on,
technology is indeed developing in a very fast way, probably even faster than our society can
handle. The different writers that weve seen in this paper also agree on that with the advance of
technology, the regulation and control of these new machines should be an important factor to
ponder on. Authors like Col. Dave Shunk and Malcom Lucard suggest that technology should be
questioned, meaning before the application of the new technologies some questions need to be
answered and deep analyzation of the ethical issues should have in big consideration. As
Alessondra Villegas says It is apparent that media does, in fact, have an effect on the way a
family system socializes and in turn their relationships. However, this effect can neither be
deemed as positive or negative technology cannot be considered as bad or good, instead how it
is being used and what it is being used for is a better reflection. We observed the future of our
society is going to be shaped by technology and this is very unpredictable due to the rapid
increase and advance of the electronic devices. The path that the development of machines will
take should be studied properly so we can use them in a way that will have a positive effect on
society.

12
Worked Cited
Charness, Neil. Work, Older Workers, and Technology Generations; summer 2.20 (2006): 25 30. Sirs. Print.
Cohn, Jonathan. The Robot Will See You Now The Atlantic March (2013). Print.
Long, Sarah M. Exploring Web 2.0: The Impact of Digital Communications Technologies on
Youth Relationships and Sociability Occidental College, OxyScholar 1.1 (2010). Print.
Lucard, Malcom. Programmed for War Red Cross, Red Crescent 1.1 (2014). Print.
Marcus, Gary. Will a Robot Take Your Job? The New York 29.12 (2012). Print.
Miller, Ben and Robert D. Atkinson. Are Robots Taking Our Jobs, or Making Them?
.... The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation 9.1 (2013). Print.
Prensky, Marc. The Role of Technology in teaching and the classroom Educational
Technology November, 2008. Print.
Shunk, Dave Col. Ethics and the Enhanced Soldier of the Near Future January, 2015. Print.
Villegas, Alessondra. The Influence of Technology on Family Dynamics Volume 2012
.Proceedings of the 70th New York State Communication Association 10.17 (2013). Print.