Nowadays Technology

Nowadays, technology has deeply affected the daily routine of the people. We can see technology everywhere in the world as we used technology in every aspect of our life. For instance, we use technology in business, communication, human relationships, education, purchasing, agriculture, banking, transportation and more. Technology can be problems or solutions to humanity. For example, students in school can do their research via an internet. This save their time, and it makes their task much easier. However, this will make them more likely to think lesser and always look for the answer through Google. It will also affect their ability to do logical thinking which will affect their exam’s mark as if they met difficult questions they would be less likely to do critical thinking and therefore gave up answering the questions.

There are many reasons why so many people decided to chase over the advanced technology even it will bring them negative impacts such as health problems, thinking ability, addiction and more. First of all, technology makes our life easier by helping us in every aspect of our life such as homework, transportation, healthcare, shopping, communication and more. This also means that we are heavily relying on the technology and it’s also the reason we couldn’t live without the technology. “No other technology has impacted us like the mobile phone. It’s the fastest growing manmade phenomenon ever, from zero to 7.2 billion in three decades” – Kevin Kimberlin, Chairman of Spencer Trask Co. This is very true as the number of mobile phone users in the world is around 5 billion which is approximately 70% of the human population (Refer Appendix 2, image 0.1). This indicates that mobile phone is vital to majority of the people in the world and this could be the biggest problem to the world. According to the University of Maryland, most of the students that they’ve studied found it difficult and uncomfortable to live without devices for a day. Furthermore, people chase over technology is because they are addicted to it without an acknowledgement. In a European wide poll, people claimed that they can’t live without internet over car, bath and TV. Overused of mobile phone can be a very serious issue around the world as it can lead to many negative consequences to the people. Nowadays, people like to use mobile phone before sleep and the screen can disrupt your sleep which will lead to many health issues such as diabetes, cancer and obesity (Refer Appendix 2, image 0.2). According to Harvard medical school, the best solution for it is don’t look at any sort of screen for 2 to 3 hours before bed and it will definitely change your life. Nevertheless, technology can still be very beneficial to us as we get to access to all sort of information easily. Besides, employment rate of a country will increase as we get to search for jobs using internet. We also have a better medical technology which can save a lot of people’s life. We can basically live in the world with just a mobile phone, it does more than just phone calling, it has even replaced cash and credit card therefore mobile phone is now totally more important than anything else for the people living in this era.

Global Perspective

Advancement of technology is very important to every country and this is also why majority of the country is investing money into their research and development (RD) department to invent new technology which is beneficial to the country. Nowadays, America’s growth of economy, standards of living and culture are affected by the advancement of technology. According to Oxford University’s predicts in 2013, job employment in the U.S. will be deeply affected by the technology and 47% of the jobs will be based on digital technology for the next 10 to 20 years. However, it is believed that technology has decreased the employment rate rather than creating them. There was 41% of Americans agricultural workers in 1900, but there was only 2% left in 2000. Furthermore, majority of the fast- growing jobs in the U.S. currently are related to technology, e.g. software engineers, computer support workers and more (Refer Appendix 2, image 0.3). Japan is one of the country that is deeply affected by the technology. Japan has the fastest train in the world which is known as bullet train (Refer Appendix 2, image 0.4), it can reach a maximum speed of 320km/h. This helped the Japanese who wants to work in a further place or visit their families at the hometown. Another biggest invention from japan must be the blue LED light. This invention very vital because it is much more energy-efficient than normal light. Without it, we wouldn’t have TV and computer LCD screen. Japan has successfully used technology in the car industry. For instance, robots will do the welding (Refer Appendix 2, image 0.5) instead of people doing it and this has reduced the costs in this particular industry. However, this has affected the job employment in Japan. For example, Mizuho Financial Group in Japan wanted to reduce their workforce by implementing robots in their operation. If this worked, I believed most of the Japanese will lose their jobs as many of the small company will follow the big company’s footsteps. Germany is so advanced that it began its renewable energy system at 1990 and invested amount of 10 billion euros and had a tremendously huge amount of workers in this aspect. It holds the most Nobel Prize for science before World War II. When we talk about Germany, the first thing that reach our mind is its sustainable energy system, automobile as well as engineering. It’s one of the greenest country in the world as it generate most of its electricity energy from renewable sources. Germany’s advanced technology contributed a well employment growth and increased the wages for their people. 22% of the workforce was employed in Germany and it contributed total of 21% of GDP in 2010. Unlike other countries, people living in Germany gain more advantages and benefit from the advanced technology rather than disadvantages.

National Perspective

Malaysia, my country is also deeply influenced by the advanced technology. According to government’s survey report, usage of internet for Malaysian age of 15 was 71.1% in 2015, compared to 2013 which was 57% of internet usage, it has increased by 14.1% (Refer Appendix 2, image 0.6) This indicates that teenagers in Malaysia has used internet widely and addiction is one of the major issues that technology has caused to Malaysian. For example, teenagers in Malaysia spend most of their time surfing the internet for entertainment purposes and this has lead them to have a bad health problem. This is because they will have less time for outdoor activities which followed by unhealthy diet. Besides, they couldn’t get a good sleep due to overused of technology. All these will affect their learning as they will feel tired due to the poor sleep and this has caused them hard to concentrate in their classes. Apart from addiction, internet could also considered as a threat to the safety of teenagers in Malaysia. According to Malaysia Computer Emergency Response Team, there are total of 560 cyber harassment cases and 3821 fraud cases in 2017. Fortunately, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is trying to promote the appropriate use of internet to the Malaysian, especially the vulnerable children and teenager. In 2012, MCMC has organised a campaign known as “Klik dengan Bijak” (Click Wisely) to spread awareness and educate people about the proper use of internet (Refer Appendix 2, image 0.7). They are also aim to teach people to be “secure, safe and responsible on the internet”. Furthermore, MCMC has also blocked Malaysian’s access to 3110 websites (Refer Appendix 2, image 0.8) which includes content of pornographic, gambling and prostitution over 2016.

Personal Perspective

I was born in 21st century, it’s an era where technology was developed in almost every countries in the world. I surrounded and used technology in almost every aspects of my life, including education, transportation, communication, entertainment and health. I wouldn’t even doing GP project now if there’s no technology. I always used the “GrabCar” app which can be download on the mobile as my transportation. Therefore, I could go anywhere i want even i can’t drive, and the fare for it is also reasonable. Recently, i just injured my ankle while playing basketball, and it hurts badly that I couldn’t even stand properly and walk. The advanced medical technology in my country made my swollen ankle to be recover very soon as the doctor used X-rays to diagnose and treat my leg. I also keep in touch with my brother who is currently studying in the U.K. through Skype or FaceTime. However, technology has also caused negative impact to my health. Due to the long time exposure to the screen, I got nearsighted issues and it irritates my lifestyle badly. For example, it has limit my potential to be a good basketball player because the glasses i have to wear limits my court vision. Technology can also makes the relationship between people to be worse. Last week, I had a reunion dinner with my relatives and it was supposed to be a reunion dinner which everyone should talk and interact with each other. However, everyone was busy looking at their phone and the whole dinner was very quite. Now, I started to put away my phone more frequently and I realised that my lifestyle has become more healthy since I put away my phone. I have more free time to do my homework, talk with my parents as well as organise my self.

Possible scenarios

If technology keeps advancing for the next 100 years, the world employment rate will be very low as more machines can takeover humans’ job especially in the manufacturing industry. This might lead to a very serious consequences that humans will no longer have any role in the society. Furthermore, it can also cause economic inequality (Refer Appendix 2, image 0.9) which the poverty rate in the world will increase. This is because the rich people who owns the machines can earn all the money without distributing it to others as they don’t have to employ any workers to work for them. In the future, low skilled employees will be fired and only people with good mechanical skills will be employed.

Possible Courses of Action

The only solution is that all the countries in the world should stop advancing the technology in their country. Although it might seems impossible but it would be great as well if the speed of technology advancement has been slowed down. U.S. should initiates by reducing the money that they invest to its research and development (RD) department as well as telling the world about dangers of “too advanced technology”. Its action might be followed by many countries since U.S. is a very influential and strong country. From a national perspectives, Malaysia should provides more free education for people to learn the mechanical skills that needed to operate the machines. The government should set a law to limit the numbers of machine used in a factory so that they will be more people employed to work in the factory.

Personal Response

Technology is a double-edged sword, it can bring benefits to the people but it can also bring harms to the people. I conclude that technology has more negative impacts on humans when it’s overused therefore we shouldn’t chase over the advanced technology. This means that we rely technology to do our work when it’s unnecessary. Nowadays, not many people has treated the problems that technology has brought to us seriously and this

indicates that we have to start spreading the awareness of dangers of technology to the society. Although i might be dead by the next 100 years, but it’s also awful to see our next generation suffers from poverty and economic inequality. I wouldn’t want to see a beautiful world turns into a disaster which fills with obese and lazy humans. From now on, I will use less technology and try my best to spread this awareness to the people around me.