Mason C.

Hudson
Professor A. Padgett
ENGL 1102
01 February 2015
How Has Technology Affected the United States of America Academically?
Brace yourself, Im about to tell you how technology has changed the world; huge
surprise, right? However, it goes much more into detail than most people may think, or care to
know. Technology is the central source for literally everything in the world today. From
automobiles, to personal interactions, to war its, literally, all controlled by technology.
Personally my first response to the question, Is your life ruled by technology? is, hell
no, I have a life! Although, as I ponder upon the question more deeply, my own opinion about
myself changes. I mean hell yeah I do have a life, but its a life that is organized and carried out
through the means of technology. I make plans, talk to friends, keep in touch with others, and,
last but not least, I learn through the means of technology. My life goes a little something like
this:
Every day I wake up to the agonizing pain of that abhorrent alarm going off telling me that I
have to get out bed and go out into the world and actually interact with people, yes real people.
After checking my cellular device and all my social media accounts to see if I missed anything
overnight I enter the world of technology and go to class. I insert the key in my truck and a
million sensors, wires, and resistors get electrified and in a split second my truck starts. I dont
believe Henry Ford, Karl Benz, and Gottlieb Daimler ever imagined that automobiles would
evolve into what they have today. But anyway, from the somehow wireless parking lot arms on
campus, to the card swipe readers that open doors for me, to the cell phone in my pocket I

experience technology all day long. But, thats not even what really affects me. I sit down in
class and what do I do? I reach to my belt clip (yes, I do still use a belt clip) and grab my phone
and scroll through the relentless selfies, duck faces, and hopeless cries for attention on social
media; check my email, text my girlfriend, and whatever else I can find to do on my phone until
its time to leave class. Then, pretty much reverse my day and go back to bed and restart it all
over again the next morning.
As amusing as my life may seem, being so technology dependent can cause a heap of
issues both personally and socially. If I become completely technology dependent I will lose
sight of reality, society, and the world in general. Although I am just one man in a world full of
millions of people, this is the case for all persons in the world today. Everyone depends on
technology for something on an everyday basis and at some point, this will become a problem.
Socially speaking, once everyone resorts to social media and technology for everything,
society wont have a problem because there wont be a society only social media.
Technology will eventually cause the human race to become unsociable because nobody will talk
to somebody else face to face, all communications will take place on social media or over some
means of technology. Also, an education will become worthless because you will be able to
google, literally, everything that you need to know. You start to ask yourself, why the hell am I
spending almost fifty thousand dollars to get an education and learn when I can look anything
that I want to up online? I mean come on, who doesnt have access to the internet the majority of
their time? However, one bright side, you cant teach common sense, no matter how hard you try,
so we (the human race) still have that going for us.

After reviewing how much we all personally depend on technology, I fabricate three
questions to ponder upon regarding the technology of America, and the Earth as a whole. Those
questions are as follows: How does technology affect classroom performance?, can you achieve
a prestigious education without the primary use of education?, and if the United States is so
technologically advanced, why are we still the ninth ranked country, according to IQs? (Tied
with Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Latvia, and Spain).
In more detail, my first question regards the usage of cell phones in classrooms from
middle school all the way up to the college level. Does the restriction of cell phone usage help or
hurt teens and adults? Should teachers and professors be more lenient towards cell phones and let
the student decide whether to text or pay attention?
Secondly, is it possible for students to graduate with a sufficient GPA without using
technology the majority of the time when compared to those students who do use technology on
a regular basis? Also, do text scores vary with/without the use of technology by the students? Im
pretty sure that when my dad attended Law School at Campbell University in 1978 that he
wasnt required to own a laptop. Actually, he couldnt have been required to own one because the
first laptop wasnt even invented until 1981 by Adam Osborne. However, he still graduated top
of his class with his Law Degree and is still an attorney today so evidently technology didnt
matter that much in 1980.
Lastly, as advanced as the United States is today, why are we so far down the list? Yeah,
we are ninth out of one hundred and ninety-six countries, but when you factor in all the ties for
spots between first and tenth, we are really thirtieth. To some, that may seem good, but not to me.
The United States should be within the top three countries in the world with all of the technology

that we have today. However, maybe if wed stop outsourcing everything that we own overseas
that might help, just my opinion but thats beside the point within this context or is it?

Throughout my research I plan to find out more information on where technology could
be in the future (ten, twenty, or even fifty years from now). In addition, I also hope to determine
a sense of reality that Ive been missing over the last few years since Ive acquired a smartphone.
I find it funny that its called a smartphone but the human race is getting less intelligent by the
decade.
My research could go a million different ways and I hope to find sufficient answers to all
of my questions. I am expecting to find in-depth answers to all of my questions because after all,
I have access to google, so I should be able to find out anything I want to, right? Who knows,
maybe Ill convince myself that its not technology that is running society, its society letting
itself ruining society.

Final Paper Proposal Reflection

The proposal for my Final Research Paper proved to me that I had a lot of research to do
prior to writing my paper. I chose to include this in my e-portfolio due to the differences in the
proposal and my final paper. Once starting my research and conducting my paper I saw that I
would have to change my topic slightly to broaden it up some. My original topic was very, very
strict and specific and it was hard to find information on that specific of a topic. While writing
this proposal I learned that a proposal and a broad overview of a paper proves to be important
when you begin writing the paper because you already know what youre going to write and how
youre going got write it.