The Internet was introduced in the 1990s, and was meant to be a bastion of new information and the exchange of ideas. While this has certainly been successful in that right, some of the unintended consequences may not have been totally forseen. The potential for greater knowledge has resulted in quite a few pitfalls that have negatively affected our society today. The availability and low quality of information provided by technology contributes to our sedentary lifestyles and alienates us even further from each other, making us worse off than we were before.
Because of the easy availability of technology, people are lazier than they were before. Instead of having to go to a library or heading outside to seek information, one only has to Google or check Wikipedia to get fast information on anything you need in a second. While this makes for quicker collection of information, it also makes us lazier and less willing to check if the information is correct. Since we can just get something done or find something out via the simplest source, we do not bother to check if it is actually accurate; something written on Wikipedia may not come from a reputable source, as anyone can edit it. Therefore, too many people trusting unreliable sources can lead to more bad information gaining repute than there should be. This has led to us becoming under-educated and lazy; we are also less eager to learn things in school, since we believe all of that information will be instantly available to us if we ever want to actually learn it. We can delay learning in that respect, which lessens the importance of information and makes us lazier as a result.
Technology also affects our health. For every new thing that can do something for us, we lose something else that we do physically. As a result, we can do most of our things from home now, from work to shopping - we do not have to go out, and we live lives of convenience. This is affecting our health dramatically; because we live such a sedentary lifestyle, we are exposing ourselves to higher likelihoods for heart disease and obesity, not to mention diabetes. Video game addictions are also commonplace, people spending hours and hours of their day glued to their television screens. In many countries in Asia, there have been cases of deaths resulting from nonstop gaming in multiplayer online games, as these individuals forego sleep, food and exercise to continue gaming just one hour longer. As a result, it can be said that video games and other technologies leave us in worse health than if we did not have them.
Some claim that the Internet culture makes people even more alienated from themselves, due to the fact that it is much more easy and convenient to respond to people via email and smartphones. Even in mixed company, people tend to take out their phones and check them in lieu of communicating face-to-face with others. This is a recurring theme in business and personal interactions of late, as the immediacy of Internet media has become preferable to actual physical and verbal interactions. The same is true of gaming culture; when one disappears into the world of online video games, one creates a new personality that they can tweak to be the idealized version of themselves. Many people lose themselves in that illusion and often prefer to spend their time gaming rather than function as themselves. This causes them to lose some of their humanity and their ability to interact with others.
Even sites like Facebook cause us to lose our humanity and our identity, and make it easier for others to steal it from us. Despite the fact that social networking draws people into worlds of connectivity between people, privacy is actually a legitimate and frightening issue. When sites like Facebook place a value on the sheer number of friends you have, it can be easy to let anyone in to see your timeline or messages. Often, the drive to express one's daily life through Facebook status updates or tweets can be so great that it can expose information about yourself to anyone who dares to listen. Add to that the option of reporting and "checking in" to wherever you are, and Facebook can literally track you down to where you are at that moment. This is a dangerous prospect to consider, especially since companies and third-party organizations will often sell your private information and search histories to the highest bidder. While the computer itself may allow you to work and communicate in physical privacy, the actual information you provide, whether inadvertent or not, is still very easy to access.
In conclusion, the current state of society where technology is concerned is very worrying. People are becoming lazier and less educated as a result of their reliance on Internet information, and they are more at risk for adverse health conditions due to not exercising. Video game addiction is a huge problem, and social networking offers not nearly as much privacy as many think. Many things have to change about the way in which we use technology in order to improve on the negative aspects of technology in our culture.
