Impact Of Smartphones And Computers On Society

1. Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, and California have enacted laws allowing mentally competent, terminally ill adults to voluntarily request and receive prescription medication to help them die. Called the “Death With Dignity Act,” the act allows doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication for terminally ill patients seeking to hasten their deaths. Do you agree or disagree with this act? Why?

2. Many leagues in professional sports use a salary cap to limit the amount of money a team can spend on player salaries. The salary cap is a method of keeping overall costs down and ensuring parity between teams. Do you agree or disagree with the use of salary caps? Why or why not? 

3. In a New York Times article about the N.F.L.’s legal settlement of the concussion suit, William Rhoden asks, “Is it right to watch a game when you know that it damages players’ brains?” Do you think that, given football’s violence, it is ethical to watch and to support a sport that often leads to long-term brain damage?

4. The nation’s opioid epidemic has reached “crisis” level. Recent investigative reporting has shown that insurance companies often favor cheaper, more addictive opioids over less addictive, but more expensive, alternatives. Drug companies and doctors have, in the past, been accused of fueling the opioid crisis too. What are the reasons for the opioid crisis and what should be done to fix this growing problem?

5. According to news polls, the majority of Americans believe that super PACs (a fundraising vehicle that allows wealthy donors to make unlimited donations in support of a particular candidate or party) should be banned. Do you think that super PACs should be legal or illegal? Why?

6. In 2010 Justice Stephen Breyer argued that the government should help parents protect children from violent video games that include “gratuitous, painful, excruciating, torturing violence upon small children and women.” Do you think that violent video games should be sold to minors? 

Advantages of Technology

Technology can be defined as the application of scientific knowledge for all the practical purposes. This can also be termed as the devices or machines that are being developed from any type of scientific knowledge or applied sciences (Goldin and Katz). The various principles, nomenclatures as well as processes are present for the betterment of science and hence are considered as extremely useful by the promotion of advantages or benefits in society. There are several forms of technology in today’s world and thus is utilized for helping the users in connecting by various platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumbler and texting. Technology comprises of various advantages and thus is considered as the biggest boon to the society (Januszewski and Molenda). However, there are some of the major disadvantages as well. These types of disadvantages become significant problems for the society in today’s world.

The following essay outlines a brief discussion on the impact of smart phones and computers on modern society. The communication process in person is eventually getting distracted with the rise in utilization of smart phones and computers. This essay will be focusing on the various uses or advantages and the disadvantages or demerits of technology and the impact of smart phones and computers within the society. Relevant details regarding the topic will be provided here.

Technology is extremely important since it is being utilized everywhere and in every aspect. This technology has several advantages or benefits that make it acceptable by all. The most significant advantages of technology are given below:

1. i) IncreasedCommunication: The first and the most important advantage of technology is the increased communication (Boccardi et al). The users can easily communicate with one another with the help of technology by means of smart phones or computers. The printing press, emails, Internet and telephone are also other significant technologies that are utilized by human beings for the purpose of communication in the globalized state.
2. ii) Education: The second major benefit of this technology is education. Virtual classes are the newest forms of education that are being delivered by various schools and colleges. The teachers or students can easily utilize internet technology for downloading or uploading significant study materials within the forms of texts, audios or videos.

iii) Better Use of Resources: The next important advantage of this particular technology is that it helps in the better utilization of various resources. The modernized tools or equipments have helped the users in utilizing the resources at the optimum levels (Gikas and Grant). The hydro power plant, nuclear power plant and thermal power plant are the most utilization of resources for the successful generation of power.

1. iv) Emerging Technologies: The emerging technologies like the Information Technology, bio technology, artificial intelligence, and many more are amongst the most significant technologies in today’s world. The initiation of the computers, internet, smart phones, and many more has created a deeper impact on the common people. Various researches are being conducted within this field of AI or artificial intelligence.
2. v) Healthcare: Technologies have eventually revolutionized the entire industry of healthcare (Donker et al.). The several diagnostic tools like the x-ray machines, machine for monitoring blood pressure, machine for measuring glucose level and many others have made possible and accurate or perfect diagnosis of the problems related to health related. These accurate diagnoses of the diseases hence result in the most effective as well as faster treatments of the patients.
3. vi) Comfort: Technology has also made the human life extremely comfortable. Everything that is being seen and being used within the regular life is termed as the gifts of technology (Anguita et al.).  The mobile phone used, the computers that are being used and many more are all the examples of various successful implementations of technology.

In spite of having all these advantages, there are some of the major disadvantages or demerits of technology. The main disadvantages or demerits of technology are given below:

1. i) Faster exhaustion of the natural resource reserve: All the modern equipments are extremely powerful. These could quickly extort the huge quantities of various natural resource reserves. However, this total reserve of the natural resources are eventually depleting because of the quicker withdrawal of various natural resources.
2. ii) Consumption of time in the non productive activities: Some users are responsible for wasting massive time as well as energy for doing the non productive activities (Salehan and Negahban). For example, the internet technology has eventually enabled the people in browsing the internet for their information or data. However, most of the people are getting addicted to these internet activities like the gaming or browsing and hence are wasting time as well as energy.

iii) Pollution: Excess utilization of technology has also resulted in the drastic increase in the waste products within the environment. Hence, pollution is being caused. The significant discharge of the industrial wastes within the environment is diminishing the overall quality of the soil, air and water (Lajoie and Derry). Moreover, the emission from vehicles is again one of the most important causes of this air pollution.

1. iv) Effect on human health: Another dangerous demerit of technology is its effect n human health. The contaminated air or water is extremely hazardous to the human health. The loud noise of all the vehicles or running factories is disrupting the human auditory senses. Higher utilization of the smart phones is also causing stress or posture related several health issues.
2. v) Excessive Dependency: Most of the people are dependent on the gifts of technology like the smart phones, cars or computers. They subsequently feel helpless when any of the technological equipments, machineries or tools become a failure to perform.
3. vi) Social Gap: All users do not have the idea of making the best utilizations of technologies. Some of the users eventually use the technologies for working in their favor, while some people are there who are finding themselves in wretched conditions (Hastings, Wayward, and Wong). This is causing a specific gap within the society. Furthermore, the situation of the digital division is being created when most of the people are not having access to the digital technologies like smart phones or computers.

Disadvantages of Technology

The introduction of computing and communication for the mobile consumer device is over the evolutionary courses for bringing interoperability as well as leverage all the services or functions of each industry. Technology plays a central role in searching for information. ICT or Information and communication technology is responsible for providing maximum opportunities for communicating and collaborating (Greenfield). Smart phone was eventually introduced, after referring to the newer class of several mobile phones with the integrated services such as communications, mobile sector including the messaging, voice communication, management of personal information and finally capability of wireless communication. The earlier smart phones were utilized as the significant enterprise devices and were thus predominantly meant for only the corporate users.  These smart phones are extremely popular amongst the people for applications they are offering to their users. The smart phones are making communication with the people extremely easier. The users are enjoying several benefits in several forms of the daily work (Salehan and Negahban). Some of the major benefits that the smart phones are providing improved means of communications, learning option to the users, greater exposure to most recent things, way to the personality development, simplest ways for accessing the applications, several ideas for succeeding in business, the platforms for growing the applications or more.

The impact on the business smart phones subsequently creates newer dimensions for the business. This is not only these vendors of smart phone enjoying the business but also creating a newer domain for the mobile applications development organizations, providers of Internet service, and many other related sectors (Donker et al.).

The social life is being drastically altered with the initiation of the smart phones and this particular domain has subsequently encountered maximum of the impacts from the proper utilization of the smart phones. These smart phones eventually play the most vital role within the process of integration of the people with special requirements, or elderly age as well as with some kind of disabilities.

The computers are the most critical requirements for communications and are termed as the centerpieces of IT or information technology (Anguita et al.). The impact of computers on society is given below:

1. i) Internet: The electronic mails, WWW or World Wide Web and Internet have eventually revolutionized the methods, various individuals are using for the purpose of communication with each other. 
2. ii) Video Chat or VOIP: Voice Over Internet Protocol or VOIP has replaced the necessity for the landline telephones within several instances. All these lines could easily provide the instant phone communications on the Internet, frequently are extremely cheaper than the fixed phone lines. 

iii) Social Networking: The social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are responsible for allowing the users in rapidly generating contents for the people within the network to check (Januszewski and Molenda). Most of the people worldwide are using social networking sites for communication in a globalized state. Hence, computers play an important role to enhance social networking sites.

1. iv) Routing: Routers are the specific kinds of computers that are being utilized for directing communication traffic. These are vital for the efficient distribution of emails or any other Internet traffic.

Therefore, from the above discussion, conclusion can be drawn that technology can be comprised of several processes and products for fulfilling the demands of the users and thus mitigating the problems or issues that are raised due to the advancement of technologies. Smart phones and computers are considered as the most utilized and popular advancements in technology. These help in understanding the needs and demands of human beings and also help them in communicating with one another. Smart phone is the type of mobile phone with higher advanced features. Information technology is responsible for allowing the users in sending signals all over the world. Two types of impacts are there for information technology. They are positive impacts and negative impacts. The above essay has properly outlined about the impact of technology on modern world or society. The several impacts of smart phones and computers are also provided here with relevant details and recommendations.

Anguita, Davide, et al. "A public domain dataset for human activity recognition using smartphones." ESANN. 2013.

Boccardi, Federico, et al. "Five disruptive technology directions for 5G." IEEE Communications Magazine 52.2 (2014): 74-80.

Donker, Tara, et al. "Smartphones for smarter delivery of mental health programs: a systematic review." Journal of medical Internet research 15.11 (2013).

Gikas, Joanne, and Michael M. Grant. "Mobile computing devices in higher education: Student perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones & social media." The Internet and Higher Education 19 (2013): 18-26.

Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz. "The race between education and technology." Inequality in the 21st Century. Routledge, 2018. 49-54.

Greenfield, Patricia M. Mind and media: The effects of television, video games, and computers. Psychology Press, 2014.

Hastings Jr, Cecil, Jeanne T. Wayward, and James P. Wong Jr. Approximations for digital computers. Princeton University Press, 2015.

Januszewski, Al, and Michael Molenda, eds. Educational technology: A definition with commentary. Routledge, 2013.

Lajoie, Susanne P., and Sharon J. Derry, eds. Computers as cognitive tools. Routledge, 2013.

Salehan, Mohammad, and Arash Negahban. "Social networking on smartphones: When mobile phones become addictive." Computers in Human Behavior 29.6 (2013): 2632-2639.