Jenna Visca, Staff Writer
Whether you use technology to conveniently communicate with someone far away or use it to research any topic imaginable, it is hard to imagine a world without it. Over time, humanities infatuation with technology has only grown; a fascination that results in technology being found nearly everywhere. People – if they are not at home watching television – are on their phones as they ride the bus, walk the streets, or sit on a park bench. With technology’s tight grip on society, we may become so reliant on it for our daily needs that hackers can find easier ways to attack us from every side.
About 3 million people in this world require the use of a pacemaker. 600,000 pacemakers are being implanted annually every year. Now, nobody used to be able to see how the pacemaker was performing inside of someone without cutting through the skin and taking a look at the device. For convenience, pacemakers are now being made to be virtually accessible in order to relay important information to doctors. Unfortunately, with no protection from viruses, these devices are extremely vulnerable and easy to hack into. A hacker could easily gain control of the device and make it so the heart can be misfiring as the pacemaker sends it constant electric shocks. A year ago, a 35 year-old New Zealand man named Barnaby Jack was even able to reverse engineer a pacemaker; having it send 830 volts straight to the heart. If the heart is not being shocked with 830 volts by a pacemaker, one could have their heart set out on contacting a loved one from one side of the country to another. With software such as Skype, it is simple to message and even talk “face-to-face” with another person that letters are obsolete now. Letters used to be the only form of long distance contact before technology, and they could take a long time to be sent out and received. With such a fact contact method as the internet, it is quite easily to establish relationships and learn about many different types of people from all over the world. Newtown High School P.E. teacher Laura Mclean said, “It makes the world very small because I can consistently contact someone from the other side of the world without ever having to travel wherever they may be. This generation is more reliant on technology to establish relationships. Both expression and motion are lost through technology.”
Along with establishing relationships, technology is a great source of information. With one easy Google search, anyone could have access to daily exercise routines, cooking recipes, or many archived newspapers that provide credible information of events from years ago. With such knowledge at your fingertips, people have accessibility to just about anything imaginable. However, this pool of knowledge is a double-edged sword. While it may contain useful knowledge, such knowledge can be plagiarized. Or even worse, the information can possibly be a threat to society (i.e. how to make a bomb). NHS English teacher Sayward Parsons said, “There are definitely benefits such as the ease of access of technology, like having knowledge at your fingertips. However, I do see the negative effects because not only do I feel like we are losing the ability to communicate in real life, but we are not seeking how to solve our own answers instead of just the answer itself.”
Overall, the influence of technology on society brings us both positive and negative points. However, if anything is certain, the influence that technology has left on our society shall be one remembered for years to come.
Photo Credit; buildmeasite.com