We Are Detrimentally Dependent on Technology

October 13, 2010

Abstract Technology comes in many forms and no aspect of our lives is untouched by some form of technology or another. Technology is dened as the practical application of science to commerce or industry. Technological development into present day has been meteoric to say the least. With the advancements of nearly every aspect of human life having some tie with technology, one might start to see a synergistic relationship between humans and technology. However, while some would believe this relationship has been benecial for us, we believe there have been detrimental effects from our growing dependence on technology.

1 Introduction
No one can argue against the fact that the human race has made enormous bounds in advancements in the last century. From developments in technology which affect society, how we communicate, the eld of medicine and education. Technology has not left any aspects of our lives untouched. There will be no shortage of people who would argue that the technological advancements of the 21st century have been benecial to society. While benecial, we believe that, as a society, we must realise the magnitude of our dependence on technology and the ramications if it were to be taken away from us. This paper argues that humans have formed a detrimental symbiotic relationship with technology in its many forms. This paper will investigate the changes that technology has affected, and show that we are becoming less dependent on ourselves and more detrimentally dependent on our technological accomplishments.

2 Commerce and Reliability

The way society does business and commerce is very dependent on the reliability on technology and thus, technology failures will cause markets to stop and bring the whole economy to a halt. Vital banking transactions and services may stop and cause wastage in human resources and time. For example, even though the exact reason is still disputed, London Stock Exchange (LSE) had to stop trading on the 8th September 2008. The two main reasons were due to the network software issues that link data from many programs1 as explained by LSE while the other was due to a buggy software
This essay was submitted for assessment in the subject 433-343 Professional Issues in Computing, in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, The University of Melbourne, 2010. The authors retain copyright (2010) of this essay. Permission is granted for non-commercial copying. The University of Melbourne is permitted to publish this essay in electronic or hard copy form. 1 http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/10947/london-stock-exchange-in-denial-over-system-outage/
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upgrade as speculated by external professionals 2 . This had left traders unable to conduct any business which intriguingly could have been one of the best days for markets around the world after a bail out of two large United States mortgage lenders. Reliability of technology cannot be guaranteed at all times. Technology crashes can also cause big companies to lose billions of dollars. An example event known as the Flash Crash [9] on 6th May 2010 illustrates this point. Just hours before the market closed, the market plunged drastically by an average of 5.7% causing major markets around the world to go into a state of panic anticipating an imminent European nancial crisis and caused great loses to companies. An investigation was done by Nanex [10] stating that the crash may be due to a software design aw in time-stamping procedures that accumulated to become a problem. Backlogged requests caused a long queue in the computer server and produced non consistent results to the requester. This further evidenced that such a dependency on technology is detrimental to the society as sudden reliability issues can create chaos all around the world or even cripple an economy. The integration of technology in commerce has also opened many opportunities to unscrupulous criminals causing nancial harm to the population. The increase in ATM crime[16] has raised concerns as criminals become more and more sophisticated. The use of spy cameras, fake machines and more sophisticated card skimming increased by 149% year on year in 2008 [11]. In addition, burglaries and physical attacks on ATM have also seen a similar upward trend. Our over dependence on these machines made ATMs look very attractive to criminals as they contain bank notes and access to customers sensitive bank information. Conversely, one may also argue that technology has hugely aided the pace of economy. Our modern society is able to process any amounts of money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week due to the advancements in online banking. Online banking allows people to make transactions any time of the day at their own convenience more efciently and effectively, without going through the hassle of heading to the nearest branch and having to queue for their turns. With technology, the economy is also boosted as up to date stock indices, exchange rates and other valuable information are available instantly. On the other hand, the increase of such efciency is a double edged sword where time dimensions have collapsed. In the fast paced world of e-commerce, one will only have little time to deal with strategic decisions where the driving force of the market is real time. And the priority is to protect what is Now3 . The Flash Crash on May 2010, discussed earlier, was also theorised to have been caused by a simple typo mistake where a trader entered a b for billion instead of m for million[17]. In this fast paced era, the information is relayed throughout the whole world and caused a shock wave as shares took a dreadful dive. Our continuous reliance on technology has exacerbated the damaging effects of accidental mistakes over a short period. Our continuous dependency on technology extends to the ecommerce realm. The term online shopping is a relatively new idea where customers can buy goods online and have them delivered straight to their doorstep. This convenience has a major issue that may be detrimental to a business. A case study by Dirk Knemeyer4 illustrated the case where he was billed and sent his orders numerous times and had to go through signicant efforts after having to deal with an automated system for most of
2 http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/infrastructure/10912/london-stock-exchange-conrms-network-softwarecaused-costly-outage/ 3 http://www.kingswell.net/news%20items/archive/e-commerce.html 4 http://www.experiencethread.com/Miscs/intel artcl.cfm?Misc=42

the time to rectify the issue. One interesting point was that the online store in question was French Connection or more commonly known as FCUK; a publicly listed clothing and accessories retailer with over 200 million a year (AUD$325 million) in revenue a year5 . The rush to satisfy the customers demand for online convenience has ironically caused inconvenience to the customer but more importantly, such an experience can lead to substantial damage to the brand image of the company.

3 The Internet and Addiction

Research shows that people consume 12 hours of media a day, on average, and compared to just ve hours in 1960. Rising income in the developed world has led to an increase number of peoples ability to afford personal computers, and connecting them to the World Wide Web (WWW). Rising incidences of internet addiction in one of the worlds largest growing economies, China, illustrates our point. Of the greater than 300 million internet users in China, there are over 40 million who play online games [8] . That makes over 40 million young, impressionable youngsters in China online daily, playing games, mingling in chat rooms, replacing their reality with an online substitute. Communication and socializing becomes something which can be replaced by actions online. One can imagine how suggestible adolescents can nd a life online to be appealing. Common adolescent angst from the real world can be replaced by a life online. Addiction is a term describing a physical or physiological dependence on something habit forming. One may argue that this addiction, to computers in this case, may simply be a phase. However, it can be seen as a serious condition when one considers the fact that centres for dealing with this type of addiction are springing up, some of which are a sub-facility under centres that treat addictions which have long been accepted as severe, such as drugs and alcohol. If the treatment for this is similar to other addictions which are widely accepted as bad, why is this phenomenon not receiving as much attention?

4 The Multitasking Overload

Multitasking is a skill often prized in todays fast paced society. However, studies have shown that our brain on computers operate differently from a natural brain. The attention of the present generation is often split between multiple information sources, and it seems vital to be able to be able to manage them all, be they instant messaging (IM), checking e-mails, reading the news, taking phone calls, and so forth. However, some scientists say that these short bursts of information, leading our attentions in many directions, are changing the way we think and operate. Research shows that people who are heavy multitaskers have problems focusing and selecting relevant information. Researchers claim that after prolonged exposure to this kind of operation, the brain is re-wired and the problems associated with multitasking, such as lack of focus are then carried into the natural state of the brain. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [12], a group of over 250 students were surveyed to study the effects of multitasking. The results clearly illustrated our point; that the lightest multitaskers were able to perform better than the heavy multitaskers in simple psychological tests. The tests highlighted the fact that multitaskers were less able to lter out unrelated information. Furthermore, other tests conducted showed that the heavy multitaskers continuously sought new information, instead of using older, more valuable information. New understandings of the human brain can explain why this takes place. Where previously believed to stop developing after childhood, the brain has been discovered to continue developing in adult5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French Connection %28clothing%29

hood. Another physiological effect of multitasking is the increase in stress hormones from constantly being interrupted. These hormones have been shown to reduce short term memory; further worsening the effect. Much more than a decrease in productivity, this constant connectivity to short-burst information has been shown to cause stress and tension. Inability to disconnect also leads to stress and tension in professionals. A New York Times survey of over 800 adults showed that over 40% check work e-mails after hours or on personal time[5]. The survey also highlighted other facts which support our argument, such as that one in seven married people reported technology to cause them to see less of their spouses, or that one in ten spent less time with their children. However, we do not contend that multitasking did not exist before the advent of computers, or even basic technology. In fact, scientists point out that humans are adept at multitasking at the instinct level, we are able to walk and talk at the same time, for example. Furthermore, studies have shown that some multitaskers are indeed better at absorbing and reacting to information than others[6]. We simply believe that new technology nowadays has increased the burden on us, and this is therefore detrimental to society as a whole.

5 Communications Reliance on technology

Our reliance on technology has dramatically improved communication, making it more robust, efcient and informative. In the current times, the ease of communication has allowed vast amount of data and information to be transmitted all over world instantly. For example, soldiers ghting the war in the Middle East are able to call using Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol and webcam technology to communicate with family members6 . This has allowed families to be assured that their loved ones are safe especially when news of casualty can be broadcasted within minutes, 24 hours a day. However, with the current efciency of instant messaging and social networking, more and more people are becoming overly dependent up to the point of addiction. Issues have been raised over employees spending up to 40 minutes per week on social networking sites during working hours, costing employers an estimated US$2.25 billion7 . The loss in productivity arises not only from the direct loss in the hours working but also from the reduced productivity of employees from social networking sites becoming an additional distraction. On the other hand, social networking sites are also becoming excellent resources for human resource 7 manager as it offers revealing information of potential and current employees social activity . Furthermore, it has been linked to another issue of society becoming dependent on social networking and posting potentially sensitive personal information such as where one is at or what one is doing. The dependence on technology for communication in the society has also meant that humans are increasingly communicating through a device; which reduced human to human rst hand interaction 8 . The decrease of interpersonal interaction in turn reduces ones interpersonal skill which is one of the most basic and fundamental way of communication [15]. Interpersonal communication cannot replace communication through emails, text messages and calls as 55% of the communication is conveyed through body language 9 . Eye contact, gestures and facial expressions and the use of tone and inections in voice communication are often lost through modern communication technology resulthttp://www.examiner.com/history-geek-in-national/netix-iraq-how-voip-skype-and-webcams-connect-soldiers-andtheir-families 7 http://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/Negative Impact of Social Networking Sites 8 http://media.www.strosechronicle.com/media/storage/paper1113/news/2008/09/10/Opinion/NewTechnology.Replaces.Social.Interaction-3423278.shtm 9 http://www.selfgrowth.com/Miscs/Body Language and Communication.html
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ing in less expressive communication or miscommunication. With the rise of smart phones that allows the constant buzzing of new emails, messages or other 10 notications can intrude social time with friends and also hinders child development . It has also been argued that people are becoming lazier as they do not feel the need to step outside of their home to nd entertainment, fun activity such as a game of soccer with friends or meeting with friends at a coffee shop11 . We believe that developed societies, as a whole are becoming more and more disconnected fundamentally even though on the surface, seeming to be more connected through trivial technological advancement in communication. Due to high dependencies on these devices, havoc in society can be caused when there is a breakdown of these services. The occasional disruption 12 in communication services such as RIMs BlackBerry service will send users scouring for information online about the disruption to nd out how long it will take before the service will be reinstated. Another example is when United Arab Emirates threatened to block BlackBerry services and did nally shut down service for several hours forcing RIM to reconsider the Kingdoms request for information to be decipherable by authorities[20]. The detrimental dependence on such device raised concerns over security of information and the right to keep ones communication private.

6 Anti Social Behaviour in Society

Cyber bullying is one of the many issues people face in todays techno-centric world. It is one which one could not have imagined as little as a decade ago. This, therefore, demonstrates its strong link to technology, computers in particular, which were not the ubiquitous tools they are today. Recent surveys in the UK have suggested that over 75% of 7-16 year olds have used the internet. The gure for the younger, impressionable generation is nearly double the adult gure of 38% (Wigley and Clarke 2000)[23]. We posit that the value we place on technology is rising, and it is easy to see how one may be affected strongly by events which occur online, such as comments or ames and so forth (Snider and Borel, 2004)[19]. The Home Ofce department of the UK government denes antisocial behaviour as any aggressive, intimidating or destructive activity that damages or destroys another persons quality of life [21]. With the proliferation of computer use increasing, anyone is a potential victim and parents can be helpless to stop it. A digital generation gap (Livingstone, 2003)[4] steadily grows between parents and children, rendering parents less and less able to deal with advancing technology, which children have grown adept at using. Surveys show that one in six children are bullied as often as once a week (Rigby, 1997)[3], with technology adding another potential dimension to bullying; indeed detrimental to a childs environment. While this behaviour has previously largely been limited to the real world, instances of online antisocial behaviour have been on the rise. Furthermore, they are no longer isolated in their manner; antisocial behaviour can follow one from the streets onto their computers and vice versa. An instance of where our growing dependence on technology has spawned harmful, antisocial behaviour are the recent esh searching (Fletcher, 2008) [2] in China. This illustrates an example of when the boundaries of online activities and the real World are blurred. When an online community is angered, it can take on a vigilante persona, conducting a witch hunt for the people through the veil of
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http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/Misc 84500834-7976-555e-9c0c-60b46fe1be81.html http://www.Misconlinedirectory.com/Art/128143/191/the-negative-effects-of-advancing-technology-on-society.html 12 http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/11/rim-afrms-that-blackberry-services-are-down/

protection people erroneously think computers provide. This has caused online activities to manifest real world consequences, an example being a student from Hong Kong being threatened with expulsion from her school after posting comments online. It is also easy to imagine the ease at which one could obtain information regarding another person, as it is becoming the norm to input your personal details online. This information has a wide range of uses, including nefarious ones be it for identity fraud or stalking. Imagining a world without access to such readily available information to a wide audience, we can visualize how these situations would not have occurred at all. Obviously, the situation is not one sided. There are denite cases in which technology can enrich social activities. For example, a video game console in the home may promote family bonding. Studies have shown that the majority of users nowadays (52%) feel that video games can offer a chance to bond with children or friends (Ophira, Nass, Wagner, 2009) [7]. The study also suggests that parents fear of their children becoming more socially reclusive in favour of playing games is diminishing. However, this does not disprove it. There are studies which link video games to violence. As little as one would like to believe these studies, there does lie a risk in allowing impressionable youths, for example, access to violent video games.

7 Technological Advancement in Medicine

The most well known development of technology in the medical eld is modern medicine. This is arguably one of the largest factors which separate modern society from the past. Without a doubt, having easier access to it leads to better and faster treatment of a persons illness. Modern medicine is a very benecial development because it allows people to have easy access to medicine. However, we argue that medicine can be abused; allowing or even promoting unhealthy lifestyles. Ailments which used to be dealt with naturally or previously not even considered ailments are now being treated with chemicals. From over the counter sleeping medication and diet pills to cosmetic plastic surgery, more and more people are willingly turning to science for a x. This opens up the scope for misuse or abuse. Study conducted showed that high spending of medicine in the USA did not necessarily have a better life expectancy outcome compared to a lower spending country such as Cuba13 . The study also stated that modern medicine is more focused on the treatment of diseases rather than avoidance and prevention of them. However, while the research on medicine keeps continuing, people have been neglecting to better the quality of their living environment. Another article states that in the early 20th century, infectious diseases were the principal cause of death [1]. The same article states that in the year 1918, during the Spanish inuenza epidemic, as many as 20 million people died worldwide. Infectious diseases spread easily due to the lack of environmental hygiene, which relates to public health. For example, a lot of childhood diarrhoea could be prevented by implementing basic hygiene mechanism [22]. This shows that many problems arise due to the lack of education on public health. Many people living in developed countries tend to neglect public health [18]. This shows the over dependence on modern medicine to cure what could have been prevented. As previously stated, the development of technology also has allowed signicant changes to peoples lifestyles. We argue that many people now have the mindset that modern medicine is a panacea, which may advocate negligence of personal health. The most common example would be an unhealthy diet, which is a growing problem around the world. The WHO (World Health Organisation) stated that globally, in 2010 the number of overweight children under the age of ve is estimated to be over 42 million. Close to 35 million of these are living in developing countries. It is also observed that
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http://www.novamagazine.com.au/article archive/2010/life expectancy vs modern medicine.htm

children with obesity are most likely to stay obese in adulthood, which will most likely provoke ailments such as diabetes or cardiovascular diseases [13]. As for adults, globally over 1 billion people are overweight and at least 300 million of them are obese [14]. The article also stated that increased consumption of more energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods with high levels of sugar and saturated fats, combined with reduced physical activity, have led to obesity rates that have risen three-fold or more since 1980 in some areas of North America, the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Pacic Islands, Australasia and China. This shows that peoples lifestyle will affect their health condition.

8 Effects of Technology in Education

The technological development has brought advancement to the education sector. There are many examples that show this. Students can just stay at home while listening to their lecturers through the internet and can access their notes and publications from the World Wide Web (WWW). Document writing and management is not a problem anymore with the ubiquity of computers; information is always at ones ngertips. However, although there are many benets that the technology can offer, there are side effects too. One of the examples is the impact on the reading and writing skills of the students. When assignments and essays were written by hand, for example, they were prone to grammatical or spelling errors. Nowadays, with the use of software which corrects grammar and spelling automatically, it is easier to write documents with no spelling or grammatical errors. We contend that the side effect of using these types of programs is the dependence on it. It is shown that spelling errors are not random or careless mistakes, but rather they appear to follow certain patterns produced by habit from writing certain words 14 . It is also stated that the spelling error is consistent and easily become habitual which makes it hard to eradicate. Another prime example of our growing dependence on the internet and its new rules is the evolution of the very way we write. Chat or social networking online has become a major part of the way people communicate. The fast, casual nature of these channels have created new methods of communication which people are becoming more and more dependent on this technology to communicate with each other . Furthermore people tend to use shortened forms of words in their sentences. An example of abbreviations in frequently used phrases, gtg truncated for got to go, for example. Obviously during instant messaging, people want to deliver messages faster. However this might affect the ability of people to read a long document. Students tend to pay trivial attention when they are reading these documents with abbreviations or shortening 15 . The internet has also become an extremely potent research and information retrieval tool. It is now arguably second nature for people to turn to the internet to source anything unfamiliar to them. This phenomenon is highlighted in recent times, with the verb googling or to google entering common parlance, even earning a spot in dictionaries. We believe that users of this technology have become too dependent on the internet for this task. This has a bad impact especially for students. When writing their research or assignment, most students depend too much on the internet to search for the information they need. Another side effect is that, while there is an abundance of information on the internet, not all of them are of the same quality. Students who become too dependent on the internet
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http://www.spellingzone.com/spellingsystem.html http://www.ehow.com/list 5994208 effects-technology-english-learning.html

also become weak at sifting information 16 . Many would agree that the ability to identify relevant, high quality information is a very benecial skill that every student should have.

9 Conclusion
In conclusion, we believe that we have presented facts which support our argument that we have grown detrimentally dependent on technology. We have explored the many facets of technological development which are rmly embedded in most aspects of modern life, and we have strived to analyze how the effects of these developments are detrimental on society. We maintain that the ramications of our reliance on new medicine, social media, technology in education, commerce and communication are a disservice to society. While we think that these bindings are detrimental, we do not support a complete disconnection from them. We conclude with the fact that while there are indeed benets to be had from these advancements, but we, as a society should learn to harness the useful ones, instead of allowing them all to run our lives.

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[17] CNBC.com With Reuters. Stock selloff may have been triggered by a trader error, May 2010. http://www.cnbc.com/id/36999483/Stock Selloff May Have Been Triggered by a Trader Error. [18] Jennifer Prah Ruger. Global health justice. Public Health Ethics, 2:265, November 2009. [19] Michael Snider and Kathryn Borel. Stalked by a cyberbully - cellphones and the net are kids social lifelines. they can also be thier social death, May 2004. [20] Brisbane Times. Blackberry in deal to avert saudi ban: telecoms ofcial, August 2010. http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-technology/ blackberry-in-deal-to-avert-saudi-ban-telecoms-official-20100807-11p8x. html. [21] Home Ofce UK. Anti-social behaviour, 2008. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ anti-social-behaviour/. [22] Sir Mark Walport. Funding scientic discovery: an interview with sir mark walport. Disease Models & Mechanisms, 3:266, May/ June 2010. [23] K. Wigley and B. Clarke. Kids.net. london: National opinion poll, 2000. http://www.nop. co.uk/.

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