Is technology a blessing or a curse - Essay Example

He describes how and older tool such as a rake can be more efficient and beneficial to the health of the user through the physical exercise he gets when he uses it. In contrast, he states that the leaf blower, although technologically more advanced, is not really that beneficial to the user and even goes as far as to suggest that it may be harmful to him because it makes an awful lot of noise and does not exert the person using it physically meaning that the opportunity for the little exercise he could have gotten from using the rake is lost.

Bell uses this example of such a simple task as moving leaves to discuss the greater issues brought about by indiscriminate use of technology. His idea is that we should only use the pieces of technology that we really need and that are beneficial to us both physically and mentally, and that we should discard those that have no real benefit for us (Bell 470-473). One would agree with Bell’s argument that we use technology indiscriminately and that we rarely distinguish between its good uses from its bad ones.

We tend to focus more on using the latest technological advancements and not on their benefits to us. There are times when it is better to use the so called old technology such as the rake rather than use new technology like the leaf blower which have little or no benefit to us. We should take every opportunity we have to get some physical exercise and there is no better way to do so than using technology that is physically exerting. The modern world has seriously changed our lifestyles and we are slowly moving from a lifestyle of physical exertion to one of dormancy due to the advancement of technology.

However, all technology has its good and its bad sides and it is this in mind that we shall be discussing the following: the automation of industrial and household processes; changes in the modes of transport; reduction of risk to human life; data and information management; and the impact of technology on entertainment and advertising (Bell 470-473). The automation of critical industrial and household processes has reduced the amount of labor that was previously required to perform these processes.

It is claimed that electronic gadgets rescue their users from the burden of performing chores. The performance of chores is one of the most basic things that a human being can do and not doing them breeds a culture of laziness among people which results in the growing cases of obesity especially in young people. There is a further claim that a lot of time is saved because these electronic gadgets do work faster. This being the beginning of the age of robotics, machines have been designed which can learn to do things with near human efficiency.

Technology has led to a change in the modes of transport from the previously slow modes to the much faster ones that are used today. The creation of the automobile industry and its evolution has enabled the development of faster means of transport unlike in the previous age when animals used to be the only means of transport. If a person from the current world were uprooted and placed in the world of the early twentieth century, he would be surprised at the extremely slow means of transport that existed at that time.

The invention of automated aircraft has increased the speed of travel with distances which previously used to be covered in days or even months are now being covered in a matter of minutes or hours. The risk to human life has been reduced by the use of technology and the mundane jobs once done by human workers are now being taken over by machines and this has the effect of making human labor redundant and if this trend is not stopped soon, and with the growing human population, then the