technology discursive essay

Min Joo Kang Task

Do you agree with the views outlined in the above article?

Write a discursive essay in which you discuss your views on the positive and negative impacts of technology on your peer group in the modern world.

In the modern day, technological progresses are constantly seen throughout every aspect of life. Technology has a profound impact in today's teenagers that we can hardly envision them without any the electronic items for a day. A lot of people perceive technology as a great tool for flourishing information and convenient transportation. Nevertheless, it is hard to deny that there have been some negative consequences as well.

To begin with, technology offers many positive opportunities for teens in terms of education, entertainment and social interactions. Firstly, interactive technology such as touch screen, animation videos and voice recognition provides variety of education. This is found to be a much effective learning method for teenagers than textbook-­‐based learning for improving memorization of terms and understanding complex topics. Secondly, these interactive technologies allow almost everything to be done from graphics interface to movement sensors, which provide huge entertainment storage to teenagers. Also, many teenagers use social networking sites to communicate with their friends and keep tract of what others do, thereby never putting them into boredom.

On the other hand, some people insist that technology rather has a detrimental impact to teenagers. Today's teenagers are often seen as being 'pampered'. They heavily depend on technology that they cannot do anything without it. The negative consequences are: firstly, technology interferes with academics. To explain this, teenagers tend to perform numerous tasks such as texting and checking email and Facebook, while doing homework. This limits their ability to focus, subsequently affecting their performance at school.

Furthermore, technology desensitizes teenagers to violent acts. Although the Internet is said to limit the access of teenagers to inappropriate materials and extreme violence, they can still easily access any violent games that lead the teenagers to take such brutal actions in real life. Finally, over usage of technological devices can lead to unhealthy habits. Today's teenagers most likely sit in front of the computer for the whole day, doing homework, playing games, scrolling down through Facebook and chatting on Skype. Everything can be done just on the computer so many teenagers tend to avoid leaving the house for exercise, which is believed to be the main cause of rising obesity rate of teenagers. Thus, technology negatively impacts teenager's lives.

In conclusion, technology may be a practical tool for education, entertainment and social interactions for teenagers. However, overusing technology can be harmful in numerous ways for both mental and physical health and academics. Monitoring or restraining ourselves to reduce the use of technology may prevent us from negative consequences but benefit more from the positive effects.