In this article, I will be talking about how technology is actually a wonderful thing. It helps so many people out in their everyday life. The only thing bad about technology is that people constantly abuse it.

Positives: 

There are a lot of positive ways that technology has helped people out and made people’s lives easier and I think a lot of people would agree with me. One way that I think it has made people’s lives easier is that it allows people to communicate with each other from all around the world. You could call anyone you would like and talk to them for hours on end. 

Before phones, people used to have to write letters in order to communicate. The letters were not guaranteed to get to the other person in time and you couldn’t do anything about it besides talk to them in person. Now that we have the technology, we can send a message and it will get to the person in less than a second. This could help out people who need a job interview so they could schedule it with the person in charge or even if they need to talk to a family member or friend. 

Another reason how technology is positive is because of school. In an interview with, 8th grader, Kali Locacio, she said, “It kind of helps people and kids in school do their assignments online. With papers, you put it in your backpack and it gets all wrinkly.” She is totally right. If you have school papers, you could lose them if you aren’t organized. If you have it on your computer or cellular device then it will be saved, stored away, and kept safe. 

Furthermore, on a paper, you can’t write as easily and if you mess up and have to erase something, there will be erase marks and it could be harder for you to read what you write after. On a computer, you could just backspace and it will be like it was never there. There are so many ways that technology is positive but those are just some. 

Abuse and Negatives: 

Now, we will talk about how technology can be negative and how people abuse it. There are a lot of hackers that could get your information if you don’t have your things safely stored away with a password or security. 

I asked Locacio why she thinks people abuse their rights on technology and she said, “The probably abuse their rights because they just want to be a social media star so people talk about them on and off social media.” That could definitely be a reason. Another reason they could do that could just be to be mean and see people mad or sad that their things have gone or changed due to hacking.

Technology could also be negative because of social media. If you post something on social media, it will be there forever and anyone could see what you posted. Social media could also dictate your opinions and it could take away your imagination. It’s already showing you things so you don’t have to think. For example, right now with the election going on, social media is most likely only showing you the good parts of the people you want to vote for. It shows people’s biased opinions when in reality, you should really be looking at both sides to make your decision..

Stop the abuse: 

There are a lot of things that could be done for people to stop abusing technology. One thing that could be done is having a limit of what you could say in a comment section. If that was done then there would be no negative comments and if there’s no negative comments then no one’s feelings could get hurt. 

There are also little kids using comment sections and for a little kid to be seeing all of the crazy things that adults or just people say could be traumatizing to a child. Either that or they could pick up on what the people are saying and go down the wrong path in life later down the road. 

People stop the abuse: 

People could do things to stop abusing technology as well. Something that could be done to stop it could be limiting your screen time. I asked Mr. Blasena, a technology and multimedia teacher at WMS, how much screen time he has and he said, “5 hours after school.” 5 hrs is a lot even for a teacher, I could just imagine how much that affects a student or other people. Think about how many things you are seeing daily just on social media. These things feed your brain and could make you believe things you necessarily shouldn’t or even see things you shouldn’t. 

I also asked Blasena, Why do you think people abuse their rights while using technology? He responded by saying, “It feels like freedom. There is no one watching you, you’re looking at a screen for example if you are on your phone, iPad, or computer, you don’t see anybody behind that and you could just feel like it is lawless. There’s limitations that aren’t there and you could do what you want.” I agree very much with what he said. People think that there are no consequences just because they are behind a screen and that it doesn’t affect other people.

Parents could stop their children from abusing technology in the future as well. If parents teach their kids about the good and bad or what to and not to do with technology, they could prevent them from making bad decisions. Kids think it is all fun and games but there are different sides to social media that they have no clue about it.