If you take a look at our lives twenty years ago and compare it to our lives today, you will see that so much has changed, more specifically with our way of living and our convenience. You will also see that so much of that is owed to technology. The continuous advancement of technology has made and continuously makes our lives more and more convenient, fast, and easy.
If you think about it, technology is perfect, right? Not all the time.
Even if technology has relatively made our world a lot more favorable nowadays, there are still some drawbacks that can make us think twice. Like it or not, there are disadvantages in the smallest to the biggest forms of technology. Here are the top 10 of those disadvantages of technological advancement.
1. Dependence on automation
With almost everything around you gaining automation – in your home, in the workplace, even on the sidewalk – it’s easy to be dependent on technology and let it do all the work while you sit back and relax. It is, after all, the main point of innovation, to make lives easier.
But too much of this can lead to dependence that when taken away, can leave you mentally and even physically crippled.
2. Less human interaction
Technology has brought us social media and online communication that can allow us to talk to anyone around the world. However, it sometimes takes us away from the people in front of us.
How many groups of people have you seen sitting together but not talking and they have their eyes glued to their phones all the time? That’s just one example.
3. Isolation
Less human interaction made worse – because everything else can be delivered to your doorstep and you can work at home.
You may have the tendency to lock the whole world out and just isolate yourself inside your home. This can have drastic psychological effects.
4. Access to things you cannot unsee
The internet is one form of technology that is accessible to almost anyone. Young and old alike can browse the internet all they want, especially without restrictions.
While this may not be a worry to adults and mature individuals, the same cannot be said for children and innocent minds. Thus, easy access to the internet can let you see things you cannot unsee and shatter the innocence.
5. Cybercrime
Cybercrime is one of the highest technological crimes involving a few tools and great knowledge of computers and hacking.
Cybercrime may include but is not limited to, identity theft, privacy and security breaches, bank hacking, and a lot more that involves money. This can lead to thousands or millions of dollars in losses.
6. Distraction
Although this may be arguably also an advantage, especially for those people who needs distraction from the bad things that are happening but let’s work with the disadvantage here.
Too much exposure to technology can lead to easy distraction, especially among students.
7. Ignorance of traditions
Technology is what they would say the modern form of living, which means we say goodbye to the good old days when we do things manually, including soirees and celebrations.
The downside on this part, however, is the newer generations’ ignorance of traditions which are great deals of the past and culture. Therefore, young ones have less exposure and education to traditions.
8. Harmful radiations
Some of the common technological advancements that we have in our homes, such as computers, televisions, and mobile phones can emit harmful radiation that can lead to cancer.
Admittedly, these three are the most common things that we feast our eyes upon every chance we get.
9. Decrease in creativity
With automation and with computers doing practically everything we need to do, our minds become stagnant and unused when it comes to creativity and proactively generating ideas.
This may have different effects on different industries, but generally speaking, the quality of creativity is decreasing. What happens when we lose all automation?
10. Deadly weapons and weapons of mass destruction
The worst disadvantage of all about technology and invention is the development of deadly weapons and weapons of mass destruction, especially with egotistic leaders of the world today.
We can only hope and pray that peace remains in most parts of the world because a war with these weapons can literally annihilate us all.
If you think back to the time when people do not have the most advanced technology yet, they still get to live their lives. It was not as fast, as easy and as convenient, compared to the life we have now that is mostly all of those three things. So if you are asked which life would you choose to live in: the past with the simple, technology-free life or the present with things are as easy as a tap of your thumb?