Technology's impact on society is both positive and negative. On one hand we are able to replace organs and grow organs for harvesting for people who need them when many years ago just the very thought of something like this was mere science fiction. In medieval times something like this would have been viewed as evil witchcraft. Not so today. But technologies that could have been used to help us explore our world further and even to explore space have been used to destroy other societies in wars and conflicts. An excellent example is the atom bomb. The power found in nuclear fusion could be used for things other than death and destruction by brilliant minds but instead it was used as a weapon for great destruction and it still is. We've graduated from the atom bomb to nuclear missiles today. In 1914 warfare became mechanized. Instead of using the emerging technology to improve societies it was employed in order to kill more people than all of the wars combined in known human civilization up until that time. Not only that but technology enables nations warring with each other to spread these conflicts all over the world! Talk about impact. Because of advanced technology in transportation, diseases can be spread with lightening speed!

There is also the problem with convenience. So many things are easy to have, easy to obtain these days. Many of us have become lazy and demanding. Instead of people starving to death from malnutrition or famine we are dying from "rich man's" diseases like diabetes and heart disease. These health problems tend to be the bane of advanced societies. Advances in farming and food production may keep us all fed but it's making us much fatter and unhealthier then ever before. The same farming practices that make it easy for us to obtain food are the same practices that feed us pesticide ridden foods that affect our health adversely. Often we look to science and technology to make life better for us. Because it makes things better for some of us, it can be easy to fall into the thinking that technology is positive and ignore its more negative aspects. We forget that technology can improve things and certain conditions but it doesn't improve people. People are the same now as they were millenniums ago. Technology does not make us better people. Knowing how to do things faster or more efficiently doesn't make us better ethically or morally. Too, only a small part of the world benefits from technological advancements. Those of us fortunate enough to live in the industrialized areas of the world, and who are also fortunate enough to live within the middle or upper class socio-economic level benefit greatly from the advancements made in science, business and medicine and comfort living. A few of those things trickle down to the rest of the world but usually they are left behind. In some ways this is unfair but in other ways they may be better off.

What technology has done to help us, it has had a tremendous impact on our lives; how we do business, health, education every area of life is affected. But with every positive gain it's given us it's added a bane or taken something away. It is as destructive to human society as it is beneficial and much of that has to do with human character has less to do with technology and everything to do with how we have utilized it.

Learn more about this author, Victoria Jeffrey.
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