Technology forms a vital aspect of our daily life. Since the commencement of human evolution, man has always endeavored to influence the resources and energy surrounding him to enable him to find his feet in the natural environment. Technology is the use of tools, from modest ones to intricate ones, to make work easier and fast. Technology facilitates efficiency in work by making hard tasks easier. We live in a world that is widely influenced by the use of technology (Donald, 3). Many scholars are concerned with the impact of the advancing technology to the human brain. Some assert that the human brain is suited to facilitate and receive technology. They believe that the human brains can keep up with the advancing technology through experiences. However, science has evolved beyond human comprehension and the human brain has continued to struggle to remain in-sync with the advancing technology. Therefore, it is the view expressed in this paper that the human brain is suited to receive and facilitate technology but cannot keep up with the advancing technology.
First, the human brain cannot keep up with the advancing technology because it is limited . Due to these limitations, the human society has been demanding for new technology to supplement its limited abilities through the years of evolution of the human race. This leads to the use of new technology as a medium by the human brain to project its ideas to the nature. Through technology, the human brain can conceive ideas and project them to the physical world for the enhancement of the life on earth in the present times.
Over the years, the population of the human race has been increasing. The resources have however not changed. Therefore, there was the need for the human beings to adapt to the new changes in the physical world . The evolving social system also had complex requirements that the humans could not meet due to their limitation. There was the need for agriculture that is more productive, more efficient transport and manufacturing processes that are more specialized. In addition, there was the need for enhanced modes of communication and a more effective healthcare system. Being limited, the human brain needed new ways of coping with the ever-changing environment. The humans make use of technology that enhances the way they interact with the physical word and in the social systems. New technology in the transport industry helps the humans to get to their destinations faster. Advancements in the medical field help the humans to live more healthy lives.
Secondly, technology advancement is exponential; the human brain cannot keep up. Scientific statistical models explain the advancement of technology and its evolution over the years. Some of these models include statistical tools that prove that technological advancement is an event that is independent of human behavior. Therefore, the human brain cannot keep up with the advancements in technology. One of the most important statistical laws in the evolution of technology is the Moore's law. According to Moore's law.org website, Moore's law has been successful in predicting the trends in technology across the spectrum of all fields. The Moore’s law has predicted scientific trends realized in the near past. Moore's law successfully predicted the development of computer hardware . The law correctly predicted that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit would double every two years. According to Moore's law, the evolution of technology is an exponential event. This rapid evolution of technology is overwhelming to the human brain and it cannot keep up with technology advancements.
Furthermore, the Moore's law in the new technological age translates into a new concept called technological singularity. Ray Kurzweil applied the Moore's law to the trends in social behavior and the advancement of technology to come up with the concept of technological singularity . Singularity is a milestone event in the near future where the computing power of the modern day computers will outdo human intelligence. Revolutionary technological developments like artificial intelligence will mark the rise of a novel age of technological singularity. This law predicted some of the revolutionary developments of the present times like 3-D printing and nanotechnology . From the Moore's law and the technological singularity concept, we can deduce that the human brain will not be able to keep up with the changes in technology.
Thirdly, technology affects the human brains . The advancements in technology realized in the present times have limited the ability of the human brain. In other words, the human brain has become redundant. Tasks that the human brain performed with ease previously are no longer easy for the average human brain due to the influence by technology . Studies have found that the ability of the human brain to remember information has reduced with the advancement of search engine technology. People do not bother to remember information that they know they can retrieve from the internet .
In addition to this, the virtual world created by social networks has greatly affected the perception of the human brain to relationships. It has reduced the ability of the human brain to deduce nonverbal cues during conversations. It has also affected the perception of the brain of the real world. The advancements in technology are responsible for the decrease in the threshold of concentration of the heavy users of technology especially personal computing technology . It is hard for a teenager in the present day to remain absorbed in a book due to the distractions caused by the need to refresh the feed from social networking sites or the interruption from a beep of an incoming call.
Opponents of this view suggest that the human brain can keep up with the rapid advancements in technology in the present day society. They suggest that the human brain is naturally plastic, and not limited, thus, it can adapt to the environment around it. However, research has shown that the human brain has not been able to adapt to the advancements in technology. Secondly, these opponents have gone ahead to submit that the human brain facilitates the advancement of technology. Nevertheless, while it is factual that the human technology is the medium of projecting the brain to the natural physical world, scientific models and laws prove that the advancement of technology is a spontaneous event that is devoid of any external effect. The advancements in technology experienced in the society today are part of the bigger picture: a self-driven event by the human brain to help it to project its ideas to the physical space and therefore cannot essentially keep up with its rapid development.
Lastly, scholars who argue that the brain is able to keep up with the rapid development in technology suggest that the human brain evolves with every cycle of technological advancement to keep up with the advancing technology. While the fact that the human brain is under constant evolution and development is factual, it is erroneous to state that, the human brain can keep up with the rapidly advancing technology. The technological advancement as explained by the Moore's law is an exponential process that the human brain cannot keep up with successfully. The human brain is limited in its ability to adapt to the exponentially advancing technology and therefore can only receive and facilitate the development of technology.
In conclusion, the advancement of technology in the modern society is a medium for the human brain to display its creativity and interact with the physical world. Scientific facts prove that the advancement of technology is exponential and the human brain cannot keep up with it. In addition, there is glaring evidence in the society today that the human brain has failed to adapt to the advancing technology and thus has been confined to receiving and facilitating it. Instead, technology has affected the normal functioning of the human brain and made it redundant. Claims that the brain is not naturally geared to receive and facilitate technology, but instead can keep up with its development remain false. As seen earlier, the human brain is limited, redundant, and technological advancement is exponential. This sufficed to emphasize that the human brain cannot keep up with the advancement in technology. Nonetheless, isn’t that why we need technology?
Works Cited
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