The Dependence of Technology in Our Time Period

In the modern day, technology is present in our daily lives like never before. For most of
us, we wake up to advanced technology every day without even realizing it; our smartphones
with alarms. It is quite awestriking to think about how much we use technology just to get
through our daily lives as human beings. While this obviously has its benefits, such as higher
work productivity or helping humanity with tasks, has it or will it ever be too much for society to
handle properly? Already we see people using hover boards as a means of transportation around
college campuses, instead of just simply walking or biking to class. Its inventions like these that
seem to take the humanity out of the daily life of a human being. The way that we can see
whether or not were are too dependent on technology is by looking at how it affects the average
person in their day to day life.
I came up with the idea of the time capsule because it is a representation of what the
common person was like and what they felt what was important during that time period. I
decided to put in my phone and my laptop, along with a few other things, that really shows what
we as a society value in our lives. Time capsules are more representative of what people valued
instead of just what they had. With the letter I wrote about how a lot of my time during the day
with technology was necessary just to be successful in life. Having my phone and laptop as
probably the two most important things really shows how much we value technology and how
much we depend on it in our lives to be successful.
The main aspect of how we are affected by technology is the way the people use it in
their day-to-day lives. The average time someone spends on their phone is around 3 hours a day,
so how does that affect us mentally? The reason why we can get so engrossed by technology is
the fact that we use it as an escape for what is actually going on in life. Instead of dealing with

whatever it is that people have going on, they can simply just turn on a device and be launched
into this new reality of theirs at any time (Nye). This can also be very dangerous for future
generations. Since we are in the era of getting things whenever we want, this can be detrimental
to a childs development and perception of the real world. We are already experiencing apathy on
a whole new level with the current generation, with wanting devices that do what we should be
doing for ourselves for us, such as a self-parking car. How long will it be before we start having
technology do even more basic things for us like getting dressed, brushing our teeth, etc.? It is
progressing to the point where humanity is placing their dependence on something that isnt real.
Another reason why we get so invested in technology is the fact that psychologically it
gives us the perception that we have control over something. It is human nature to try and control
something, so technology is just a very wide-spread medium of how that occurs (Kessler). So
whenever you see people who have an addiction to social media or other things on their phone, it
could be stemming from the fact that they are subconsciously trying to fill a void in control, and
this is very prevalent in todays society.
In conclusion, technology obviously has great benefits, and has the ability to help us as
humans achieve great things. However, it is when that technology is not used in moderation and
abused that it starts to become a huge problem. For some people, it starts creating a very warped
sense of reality, and this kind of incident can be very dangerous throughout an entire population
of people. We are already seeing studies of technology affecting mental health in the youth of
this generation, and it is unclear of how much it will the affect mental health of future
generations. While modern technology and electronics can be beneficial to us, it can also take
away the very thing that we were all born to be: human.
Works Cited

Ahuja, Masuma. "Teens are spending more time consuming media, on mobile devices."
Washington Post (2013). Newpaper Article.
Kessler, Debra. The New World Order: Have we come to far with technology. 2009. (New)
Nye, David E. Technology Matters: Questions to Live With. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006.
(New)
Rotman, David. MIT Technology Review. 2013. 2015.
Turkle, Sherry. Have we grown too fond of technology? Ira Flatow. 25th February 2011. Radio.
U.S Department of Energy. The History of the Lightbulb. 22 February 2013. 5 October 2015.
WebMD. Effects of too much screen time on teens. 2015. Article. 2015.

Submission Reflection
Overall, I felt like this was a very difficult project for me. I couldnt really find any
scholarly sources that could help me because I felt like I could only go so far with what my topic
was. I was confused on what where I could go with this, and all of the ideas that I felt made
sense before didnt make sense in the context of the paper, so I feel that this was not a job well
done. I felt that my idea for the product was really good and the paper pertained to it well, and
that the product really fit the genre that I was trying to create. Other than that, Im kind of
disappointed of how this part of the project turned out for me. I feel that I probably earned a B,
nothing too great, and nothing too awful. If there was one thing I could change, it would
probably be the direction that I took with the topic, or have a different topic entirely.