Negative Effects of Technology in Education - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages As technology continues to evolve, it brings with it new opportunities and challenges for educators and students (Donley). In fact, it can be said that reading for gratification, which has declined among the youthful populace in recent decades, is among the things that enhance thinking and helps to engage the thoughts in a way that visual media such as video games and television cannot achieve. One of the most fundamental golden rules that have to be observed when using technology in education is that moderation is everything and this is because of the fact that technology can easily be overused within the classroom, and this can cause a negative effect on the entire learning experience. It is true that some of these effects are already being seen from student texting and internet usage during class and there are also increased prevalence of plagiarism for coursework and general deficiency of respect for accurate language usage particularly when writing essays. This is a clear indicator of the consequences that technology usually has on the intellectual abilities of the current generation and is a display of the overall power of the internet. According to David Gelernter, “computers are our worst educational nightmares come true.” While it is a fact that independent thought has greatly been encouraged through the reading of books and has ensured the development of new ideas, this ability would be immensely diminished if there were no books in the world because it is only through the study of old ideas that new ideas are developed. Technology that is used in education, such as the internet will inevitably lead to the extinction of books from the education system because it is the source of plenty of information. However, despite the large reserves of information within this technology, the internet does not have the qualities which books have because most of the information gotten from it is often instant and shallow. The internet does not allow individuals to contemplate the information which they have just received, as books do and the lack of independent thought because of the absence of books is likely to put the human race into a dark age of intellectual stagnation. The ability to think through the study of the previous work of scholars is what has helped the academic advancement of many children in the past and the inability to think and the reliance on shallow sources of information such as the internet is likely to see the end of the academic system as we know it. Students are able to learn about their past from books and with this knowledge, the take action to avoid the mistakes of their past. The use of technology in education has to be moderated because it is a fact that books have been and still are the most credible source of academic information for centuries, and without books, one would conclude that there can be no history. Gelernter further states that “teaching children to understand the orderly unfolding of a plot or argument is a critical part of education and this is why the study of stories and arguments is only possible through books and because of the developing lack of interest in them, slowly but surely, students are likely to end up without a culture of analyzing their environment. This can clearly be seen when most of the children today prefer watching television, playing video games, and even social networking on the internet to having intellectual discussions. The power of the media has become so great that many students in the education system do not have the will, or the inclination, to live a different sort of life.   ...Download file to see next pagesRead More