Impacts of Technology on Human Creativity - Research Paper Example

?Impacts of Technology on Human Creativity Introduction Creativity is a process that involves generating new ideas and concepts. Creativity entails finding out ways to repair damage or improve old paraphernalia other than replacing them. On the other hand, technology is the systematic management of art, thus considered a resultant of creativity. Additionally, technology encourages coming up with novel things to replace the old and impaired ones. Use of technology has both positive and negative impacts on human creativity. Plato once said, “Necessity is the mother of Invention” (Hoffman, 2012) meaning that the need for something makes human more creative. Technology has made it too easy for human to acquire the different necessities automatically without taking time to think of how different machineries work. However, technology entails inventing new designs and models, thus it requires some creativity. Additionally, advancement in technology results in emergence of new problems whose resolution requires application of creativity. For example, invention of a new machinery involves coming up with new ideas and it upkeep requires some sense of creativity. This paper will focus on the positive and negative impacts of technology on the human creativity. Use of technology enable us to multitask thus achieve several accomplishments in a limited period. Technology entails using different senses especially visual audio and perceptual at a go. For example, a simple task like typing a creative piece of work requires vision, use of hands, and rationality. Use of technology for purpose such as advertisement and digital imagery require creativity. For example, coming up with a catchy product advert require one to think of new ideas of making it appealing so that it can have a competitive advantage over other similar products (Boden, 2012). Another positive impact of technology is that it enables humans to combine several ideas at a go encouraging increased creativity. For example, a program like JAPE, which processes jokes, requires the user to be creative enough to combine different templates (Boden, 2012). Technology helps us save time that can be used to enhance creativity. A good example is in designing by mechanical engineering. Before the invention of computers, mechanical engineers had to use pencils and paper to draw designs. Designing a simple 3-dimensiom widget design required one to take not less than five hours. With the invention of CAD software in addition to the PC’s, designing the same process takes less than an hour giving mechanical engineers at least four extra hours to be creative (Desrochers, 2002). Technology has enabled first and easy access of a wide range of information and resources making creativity less costly. A good example is writing a manuscript or a book. Previously, doing such an activity require a lot of time doing the writing, editing, publishing, printing, and publicizing the material. However, using computer and printing technology requires less effort and time making it possible for writers to air their creative view and ideas efficiently (Boden, 2012). Technology has also enabled collaborative teamwork across different professionals. This enables sharing of ideas creating room for more creativity. For example, development of ultrasonic instruments for surgery required combining ideologies in medicine and engendering (Desrochers, 2002). Technology has also had it negative impacts. It has increasingly made students less creative, lethargic, and irrational. Most teachers and lecturers post their notes and assignments online and expect the students to give their feedback online. Students no longer go to libraries or refer to textbook but prefer taking the shortcut of copy and paste. In such cases, the technology does not help students learn more or come up with new ideas thus they end up becoming less creative as compared to using textbooks which requires attentiveness and rationality (Boden, 2012). Additionally, technological inventions such as mini cameras, graphing calculators, cell phones encourage cheating in exams and students do not find the need of research, which is important in developing creativity. Reading and creative writing skills are becoming worse among students using websites for study purposes since online information tend to be scattered and most student tend to get distracted into other things. The use of video games and play station for recreation purposes has had both positive and negative impacts on children. The positive effect is that it has enabled children to think fast since the games require fast processing of visual information to come up with a solution. This helps children become fast thinkers and enables multitasking. The negative impact is that is that the games impair on the children’s patience and creativity. This is because most games require repetition of the same course of action thus the player does not require to come up with new ideas to resolve the puzzles. Additionally, the children will eventually have difficulty focusing and resolving problems that require plenty of concentration and creativity. Creativity requires one to be able to concentrate on an issue for a long period and carry out plenty of research. Using the internet require hooping from one site to another which results subsequent loss of long-term concentration. Frequent surfers might end up being less creative as they tend to focus more on the available information and concentrate less in coming up with new concepts. For example, spending a lot of time reading over the internet ultimately makes it almost impossible for one to concentrate in reading a book. In conclusion, human creativity entails implementation of ideas to create or design new thing or improve on existing ones. Technology, on the other hand, entails coming up with new tools to meet emergent and long-standing needs. Technology has had both positive and negative impacts on human creativity. The negative ones are mainly related to the fact that it has made things easy making humans less thoughtful, and lethargic thus they spend less time researching on creative ideas. The positive impacts arise from the fact that invention entails coming up with new ideas which require creativity. Availability of technology has also enabled experimentation with different ideas enhancing human creativity. Technology, therefore, fuels creativity by creating new avenues for cheap and faster originality. References Boden, M. (2012). Can computer models help us to understand human creativity? Retrieved July 14, 2012, from On the Human: Can computer models help us to understand human creativity? Desrochers, P. (2002). Local Diversity, Human Creativity and Technological Innorvation. Growth and Change, Vol 32, 369-394. Hoffman, E. (2012). Fostering Innovation: Necissity Is the Mother of Invention. Retrieved July 14, 2012, from skmagazine.nasa.gov/pdf/pdf24/NASA_APPEL_ASK_24d_from_the_director.pdf Read More