Humanity has come a long way. Thanks to technological advancements, life has been way easier for humans. If not for technology, maybe we would still have been sending messages through smoke signs and pigeon birds. I can't imagine sending a very important message to a person and my pigeon bird somehow fell in love with another bird along the way. The modern era has caused many political, cultural, social, economic, and even educational changes. These changes have had a profound impact on people’s attitudes and values. In my opinion, the educational benefits of technology in the lives of humans are considered to be the significant benefit of them all. Thanks to technology, humans don't have to walk 5 miles or more before they get materials.
This makes it seem like our predecessors really suffered. Imagine walking for 5 miles from one place to another just to check the meaning of a word in the dictionary. Or going from your house to the library, only to check the meaning of a phrase. In today's world, we have access to limited knowledge as long as we have our cell phones with us. We are in the 21st century where access to knowledge is easy and cheap. However, does this make us smarter than our predecessors? Does this make us more intelligent than our predecessors who were eager to learn and who would travel miles to libraries just to obtain materials? On the surface level, it may seem like cheap and free access to knowledge is good as it makes life easier for us. However, deep down, there are so many strings attached to it.
To start with, We have access to unlimited information; both the good and bad ones. The ones that are healthy for our brains and the ones that make them rot. The internet does not magically filter the bad ones from the good ones. As long as you have a phone and internet connection, everything becomes consumable. It is now up to you to choose whichever works for you. Sometimes, we allow ourselves to be ruled by the negative impacts of the power of unlimited knowledge.
With the internet at our fingertips, humans have become more lazy. In this day, knowledge is cheap and easy and it can be gotten without having to leave your room, but this has reduced the level of critical thinking in humans. Ever since the emergence of Artificial Intelligence, human beings have stopped trying to be creative. They now rely on these bots for essays and assignments. I mean, what is the point of racking your brain to write a long sonnet when you could just see help from your AI? What is the point of writing assignments when you can just click a few buttons and get answers?
Over the past few years, there's been a longstanding debate about whether AI has done more good than harm. In my school, the lecturers complain every day that students can not think on their own and construct simple and basic sentences- they have to rely on AI. To worsen the case, they use this Artificial intelligence for literally all these assignments, tests, and projects. I understand the pain that these lecturers go through after teaching for hours and then giving an assignment, only to find out that most of the students wrote the same thing because they used similar AIs.
We have become so dependent on technology that it is starting to dictate how we live our lives. Of course, it is all thanks to technology that we have made it this far. However, human beings need to find balance in how they let free and cheap access to knowledge control their lives.
Thanks for reading.