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CHAPTER I

RATIONALE
Seeing our current advances in information sharing, accessibility, and communication one can
simply see that the current generation is heavily dependent on these advancements. Also, this
generation's great dependence on technology has made it forget the basic ways of life that our
fathers have gone through. This study has been made in order to know how would this generation
would react to a technological ruin in world wide scale.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM


The recent advancements in information technology and communication renders this current
generation weak and helpless due to its great dependence on the latter. Thus this research aims to
know and identify the effects of the absence of technology on the current generation and its
possible solutions if its effects are unsuitable for next generation.
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The significance of this paper is to inform the reader the possible outcomes of a technological
ruin, its effects to lifestyle of this current generation, their capability to cope up, and adjust to the
situation.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The social effects of the advancements of technology on the current indefinitely proves the idea
of technological determinism. This standpoint is defined as: the belief in technology as a
governing or driving force in society dating back at least to the early stages of the Industrial
Revolution.(Smith, 1994) One of its effects is indirectly yet effectively rendering this current
generation as fragile due to its great dependence on technology as it is today.

METHOD OF APPROACH
The method applied for this paper is solely qualitative gathering of required data from few
selected but somehow reliable sources on extremely late nights without caffeine or any other
form of performance enhancing chemicals such as stimulants or brain steroids. Also and an
extremely minimal survey on a certain number of college students prepared instantaneously on a
text message without any form of rough drafts was executed to gather actual responses from real
people.

CHAPTER II

The rate of advancement in technology has literally accelerated the daily lives of todays
generation. Roughly there were a total of 7 billion people connected on the net in 2012
(http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) and a whole lot more this year. The current generation is
heavily attached to technology rendering them helpless in its occasional absence (e.g. powercuts,
line/cable failure etc. ). Based upon a survey done on a number of college students, 98% percent of them
are connected via social media (primarily facebook) and only 2% having none at all. Also when asked of
their reaction of a powercut or line failure more than a half responded by actually going out and look for a
place where there is net access, only a few took reading as an alternative over foraging for internet access
(1% chose sleep). These numbers prove that most of the members of this current generation is heavily
attached to the technology of today and this attachment is mainly shaping the social and educational
aspect of society. Socially, this generation creates more distant relationships with complete strangers
which normally end up in pitiful and almost laughable results. Interaction over cyberspace is risky and
dangerous as well as useful in many ways. In education however, the effects are far more drastic. Due to
the extreme ease of access of information for basically any subject causes a person to become reliant to its
ease and causing him to think and innovate less and less-in short: becoming dumbed down to uselessness.
Though it may sound too extreme but it is an undeniable fact that the current generation is less efficient
and effective compared to the previous ones without the current technologies. Also with the ease of access
comes great leniency towards the importance of education and thus increasing the rate of uneducated
techies in the foreseeable future though how bleak it may sound.
Seeing the effects of technology on the current generation, one would wonder about the effects it
would make if it were to disappear completely or at least the internet and other forms of highly accessible
communication and information. Along with the results of the conducted survey mentioned previously a

brief survey of reaction was conducted. 85% yielded extreme reactions when the question was raised
and the rest of the 15% took no thought of it. The results somehow came as expected since it deals with
issues concerning catastrophe. The real question is, Can this generation go back to the basics?. Weeding
out the insignificant numbers in the mentioned survey, shows that the amount of respondents reading
books(or at least reading) in their free time is significantly lower than those who are doing computer
related hobbies putting aside the numbers concerning socializing with friends (who knows if theyre
doing a LAN party in a net caf or something). Given these figures the answer to the question is bleak
since there are a lot more people immersing themselves on tech rather than on books. This proves that in
the aftermath of a sudden technological ruin a large percentage of the current population will fall into
instantaneous and or brief nervous breakdown proceeding to mental instability and that is simply the
beginning of it since there is a specific set of symptoms for a specific age bracket. Children (aging 11
years old below) will experience psychological and emotional problems (e.g. aggressive behavior,
defiance, tantrums..etc) and adolescents tend to become more interested in risky hobbies and activities
and withdrawal from friends leading to relationship breakdowns (Donovan et al, 2011) to name a few.
Also abstinence from books and other basic form of information gathering will be the one of the
immediate effects of such disaster on this generation but in time it will adjust- reverting back to the basics
of living and learning.

CHAPTER III
In light of the possible effects of a technological catastrophe on the current generation, it is
preferable to occasionally abstain from mundane tinkering of technology but not completely abstaining
from it to the point of ignorance. Also it is better to continue the olden ways of learning new knowledge
from printed hard copies of information. Progress and change are constant therefore control is the basic
solution.

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