People Are Getting Overly Dependent on Technology

One of the articles deals with the fact that young students are addicted to sexting. And lastly, one paper deals with the decrease in printed materials. In fact, this paper is a research work on the dependency and independency of humans on information technology. Is information technology becoming the primary necessity of our existence; as we are getting dependent on it? “Could you please hurry up? I’m getting late” a customer is a renowned super shop is becoming restless due to the long queue in the payment desk. But what happened?

Why has everything halted suddenly? It was just a case of system failure, which stopped all the works inside the shop and the cashier was unable to make the bills, as the bar code reader and all other software were not responding. As a result, the waiting list got longer and created chaos inside the shop. Look, how such a simple system failure is creating so much distraction in our life. The above situation was just an example from a super shop, but it is not the only thing based on information technology. In fact, most of the things in our country are now based on information technology. Even if the world recognizes Bangladesh to be a poor, developing country with many people living below the poverty line, the usage of technology is considerably high. In a report published in Internet world statistics, the author (2010) stated that the number of mobile phone usage increased from 100,000 to 995,560 with the rate expanding from 0. 1% to 0. 6%, from 2000 to 2010. Nowadays, cellular phone usage has become very common amongst the lower class in our country. Also, offices and stores are relying on technology for storing their records and dealings.

Moreover, students have become dependent on the Internet for searching for essential information. Why are we using this information technology? Because this technology makes our life easier, for example, it enables us to communicate with others at a distance within a second, IM and video conferencing are allowing us to be in touch with our relatives staying abroad, and that also for free; only the line rent is enough to let us exchange few words with our relatives. In addition information on the Internet are allowing us to get updates in a matter of seconds. Even if it is providing us with ample benefits, it is giving rise to dependency. I strongly believe that people are getting over-dependent on technology, as these facilities are making us inefficient in manual work procedure, handicapped without technology, and it is also becoming the main reason for wastage of money in the case of the young generations, though IT is providing us a less time-consuming lifestyle, low cost communicating facility and a digital way of refreshment.

Just recall the previous times, when we were not touched by the digital life system; what happened at that time?

Students did not got any help from the internet for their assignments, in spite of that they did their assignments and other works, they were not thrown out of the institutes for getting bad grades. Scientists, doctors, engineers were born previously; they also did their research works, as well as new inventions. They worked hard, without looking for something simpler they went through the printed books, to gather information for themselves; but nowadays students cannot even think of doing their papers without the help of the technology, they are becoming inefficient to go through the manual working procedure. As time changes, we are getting new technologies to improve our lifestyle, as for example, now assignments, projects, and other brainstorming works are easier today. Just type the word and click to search anything about the related topic in Google (the most efficient search engine). According to Dingle (2010), Google did a revolution in the business sector by starting its journey of giving free service to search for information in its sites, and day-by-day Google is expanding its services. Google obviously makes our life easier, and that is why students tend to rely upon it for their academic purpose. Zillien and Hargittai (2009) did a survey on different types of Internet usage on the various classes of people in the society; the most common usage amongst all the groups of peoples was email and search engine usage. From the higher class to the lower class, everyone is dependent on Google, as almost 86% of the sample replies to it, and above 90% responds to the email usage. Karen et al. (2010), says students are getting dependent on the electronic and search engine sources mostly from 1996 to 1999, as between those years, the number of printing sources like books decreases.

All these experts are telling us about the efficiency of IT in our lives, where we are actually becoming more inefficient. Most of the companies and offices are using IT to maintain all their documents, records, and dealings. They said that IT is helping them to maintain all the complex works in a simpler way. For example, Apollo Hospital is a worldwide chain hospital, which has opened into our country recently. An employee of the hospital was asked about the system maintenance of the hospital, and he answered that from the appointment to pharmacy billing, every single thing is maintained by the IT system. They have interred linkage within the computers throughout the hospital, and everything is monitored centrally. All the patients and staff have got different numbers and servers where all information about them is saved. Then the question arises, what would happen if the system fails for one day? The employee becomes silent and says we cannot even think of the system failure for one hour, and it is impossible to run a day without these systems.

The employee was also asked whether there is a manual system, in case of emergency in the hospital, he says no; by chance, if there is any system failure, nothing can run on that building, patients would have to wait for getting prescription as well as their appointment. He also said that “we are handicapped without technology”, as they cannot perform any of the action without computers. Though IT allows them to maintain all the things very swiftly, it also makes them be dependent o it. The most surprising fact is that humans invent technology, and now they cannot proceed without the technologies. Nowadays, almost every people confess his or her dependency on IT, while in a survey people of different ages were asked about this dependency, and according to the figure 7, 62. 5% of the people said that they are dependent on the information technology, and figure 5 says that 100% of the people cannot imagine themselves without their cell phone or laptop. So, we can say that IT is making us handicapped, as often we cannot work on their unavailability. The young generations of today are now up to date with all the latest technology available. They are getting dependent and wasting money to buy different gadgets. Dingle (2010) gathers information from the research firm Gartner, where the author found that Global IT has spent US$1,4 trillion, from where a huge amount of money went for both hardware and software, which in turn helps us by increasing the availability of computers in almost every corner of our lives. We are progressing, and new inventions are coming every day; companies like Apple, Nokia, Blackberry and etc. are contributing a lot to serve the necessity of the young generations. Dingle (2010) cites the research of Gartner who expects that the customers will spend quiet about US$6 billion to get mobile applications.

Computer invention is believed as a revolution in the world, it was made for human beings, to make their life easier, faster, and more comfortable. Many people believed that before we wasted most of our time by being in a manual system, whereas those works can be done within a moment. From figure 7, we can see that 76% of the people said that information technology is making our life easier and faster. Students from different universities and institutes say that without information technology it would be much harder for them to complete the assignments and other research works. These technologies are allowing them to communicate experts worldwide, whenever they need they can go to the web sites and gather their required information. The students argued that they have lots of works to do, for which they need to be multi-tasking. And information technology is giving them a route to be successful in their life. But if we consider the ancient times, people were also successful at those times, scientists, engineers, researchers also did their challengeable jobs at those times. Without the help of information technology, they did work hard and become successful in their lives.

Again students said that at that time, life was not that much competition, and for this current and present situation no one can work without the help of IT. While aged peoples said that, young generations do not want to work harder as they can get anything they want within a second. Nowadays it is familiar to get everything done by sitting in a computer, even products can be ordered on the internet, so our young generation is becoming lazy and inefficient because of IT. From Figure1 we can see that 64% of the people surveyed say that information technology is making us inefficient. What is the use of that life, which is making us unproductive to work of our own? “Time and tides ”, especially in this competitive world of ours, we cannot even think about wasting a single second from our lives. Everyone is in the struggle to do well in their life and in order to get established, people are getting away from their close ones, sometimes they are going abroad to study or for a job. Information technology helps us to communicate with our loved ones from a long distance, and that is also at a very lower cost. But quiet about 57% of the teenagers said that they use cell phones to communicate with their friends. Not only that, but the awesome features of taking pictures in cell phone and uploading instantly on Facebook or Twitter is also quite famous among them. Text messages and multimedia messages are also a very popular way of communicating with peers. Corbett (2009), says about “sexting”, that is, while in a relation, girls send their nude pictures to their boyfriends, and after they break up, the boy uploads those pictures on the internet, and in this way teenagers are affected by the impact of technologies.

Usually, it is seen that adolescents use IT for most of their works, most of them are unaware of the intentions of their friends, and this is how IT is affecting our teenagers and adults. Lastly, adults and teenagers cannot even think of themselves without their mobile, computers, and all other entertaining devices. They believe that, life is becoming so busy, they did not get extra time to communicate with others, and there is also no extra time to play outdoor games or to hang out with friends randomly. As from Figure 3, we can see that 75% of the people say that they use IT also for their personal purpose rather than academic or officials, and in Figure 4, 82. 5% of people said that in this current situation IT is needed in every step of our life. Due to the lack of time, most of the peoples are now relying on the digital form of entertainment. As I have mentioned above, students are willing to spend money on buying gadgets for them. Movies, games music is now considered as a form of entertainment. Students are found to do chatting in messenger, while they are in class. In order to get all these facilities they often buy expensive mobile phones. Many people believe that this way of communication is decreasing the intimacy and values between one’s relation. Expenditure on the technologies is increasing, which in fact is reducing the development of all other sectors. For example, Bangladesh is a poor country, we have unequal distribution of wealth, many times higher class people support the lower class peoples for their survival. But as they are now up to new technologies every day, they are spending much money on their own.