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How Technology Impacts Our Lives in a Negative Way

Have you ever seen the moody, withdraw student in your class with music blasting out of
their headphones or the one thats just constantly on their phone texting. The youth of today
generation are constantly immersed in technological advancements that promote non-stop
communication and instant gratification, whether through cell phones, game systems, laptops or
tablets. But are these technological advancements a good thing? The increase of technology has
a negative impact on us and has influenced the social interactions of todays youth because
it isolates individuals from reality, hinders communication and perpetuates the concept of
immediate satisfaction.
Technology is a negative influence on us because it isolates individuals from reality. The
smart phones have headphones that we can put in our ears and immerse ourselves with music
while in public. This disconnects you from others in the world such as constantly being on your
phone while having a conversation with others. Technology hinders personal communication that
negatively impacts our age group, according to a study from Stanford University, face to face
interactions is a necessity to live a successful and positive life. The study shows that people who
spend more time communicating on social media rather than having a real conversation with
people tend to be having feelings of isolation and if they spend a lot of time on social media are
the ones that start to drift away from their friends and family and start to become more addicted
to their devices to be a source of communication and when someone disconnects there self from
social interactions they feel isolated and become depressed and dont have any initiative to have
any sort of personal interaction, this will affect their communication skills that they lack because
if they go to a job interview they would have to make eye contact with the employer and have a

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intelligent conversation with them and if they can not do that they will have problems in the
future and the simplest things in life will become difficult for them.
Technology is bad for kids because between zero and two years old infants brains triple in
size. TV and videogames can lead to increase of obesity, children that are allowed to have
devices in their bedroom have thirty percent increased incidence of obesity and could develop
diabetes at a young age. The are likely to be at a more higher risk for early stroke and heart
attacks, graveling short life expectancy. They might not be able to live longer than their parents if
they have these types of problems. Every one third of american children and teenagers are
overweight or obese, making childhood obesity the leading health concern for parents in the
United States. Not so coincidentally, the American Academy of Pediatrics has estimated that the
average child spends seven hours watching television, browsing the internet and playing video
games each day. While its tempting to turn to technology to help keep your children occupied,
too much screen time may instill unhealthy habits that persist into adulthood. According to a
review on obesity in 2012, a lot of screen time may increase obesity risk.
The increase of having a lot of exposure to technology can go hand and hand with
decrease in physical activity. The more children that spend more of their free time sitting in front
of the tv, computer and not spending their time running around playing being active burning off
calories and sitting around snacking can lead to significant weight gain. Having a television in a
child's bedroom can increase the impact of tv watching on weight status, in dependent of
physical activity that may due to the decrease amount of sleep associated with late night,
unmonitored television watching. A lack of sleep causes an increase in ghrelin, the hormone that
signals youre hungry and a decrease in leptin, the hormone that tells you youre full. On

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average, a sleep deprived person will consume three hundred extra calories per day, usually from
high fat foods and snack more frequently than someone who is well rested.

It also affects teens that are in high school and middle school because they become distracted
from their learning and constantly on their phones in class while teachers are teaching. Schools
have rules now in the CMS handbooks about students can not be on their phones during class
time unless they given permission from a teacher. This is because they are trying to be more
stricter rules by collecting the phone for the rest of the day and your parents have to come up to
the school to get it.
Technology has made bullying easier for kids to bully one another, putting them at risk
for violence, depression and suicide which is cyberbullying. This can make kids not want to go
to school or interact with anyone in the world because they experience a lack of acceptance in
their peer group. This can lead to loneliness and social isolation. Aggressive and hateful emails,
ims or websites that are utilized as a new and faster medium for bullies to victimize others.
cyberbullying , technology's new phenomenon is causing emotional harm and trauma to our
nation's youngest citizens. Bullies can spread damaging lies about them causing them to have
lower self esteem and harbor feelings of fear and self devaluation, this has led to attempted
suicides among americans teens. According to cyberbullying research summary twenty percent
of respondents considered suicide after cyberbullying and nineteen percent reported actually
trying to do it sample group of two thousand random school age people from popular areas of
The United States.
Technology overuse can lead to danger because thousands of people are killed or injured
in car accidents each year because someone was talking on the phone or text messaging behind

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the wheel. These technological distractions may cause someone to neglect the road and forget to
control their vehicle. The University of Utah's applied cognition laboratory, researchers found
that distracted driving is worse than drunk driving in terms of reaction time. In 2009 five
thousand and four hundred and seventy four people were killed in these types of accidents,
according to distraction.
Children now of days rely on technology for the majority of their play, grossly limiting
challenges to their creativity and imaginations, as well as limiting necessary challenges to their
bodies to achieve optimal sensory and motor development. Sedentary bodies bombarded with
chaotic sensory stimulation are resulting in delays in obtaining child developmental milestones,
with subsequent negative impact on basic foundation skills for achieving literacy. Hard-wired for
high speed, todays young are entering school struggling with self regulation and attention skills
necessary for learning, eventually becoming significant behavior management problems for
teachers in the classroom. says chris rowan.
Children developing sensory, motor, and attachment systems have biologically not
evolved to accommodate this sedentary, yet frenzied and chaotic nature of todays technology.
The impact of rapidly advancing technology on the developing child has seen an increase of
physical, psychological and behavioral disorders that the health and education systems are just
beginning to detect, much less understand. Child obesity and diabetes are now national
epidemics in both Canada and the U.S., causally related to technology overuse. Diagnoses of
ADHD, autism, coordination disorder, developmental delays, unintelligible speech, learning
difficulties, sensory processing disorder, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders are associated
with technology overuse, and are increasing at an alarming rate. An urgent closer look at the
critical factors for meeting developmental milestones, and the subsequent impact of technology

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on those factors, would assist parents, teachers and health professionals to better understand the
complexities of this issue, and help create effective strategies to reduce technology use.
Four critical factors necessary to achieve healthy child development are movement,
touch, human connection, and exposure to nature. These four types of sensory inputs ensure
normal development of posture, bilateral coordination, optimal arousal states and self-regulation
that is necessary for achieving foundation skills for eventual school entry. Young children should
be require 2-3 hours per day of play time outside to achieve adequate sensory stimulation to their
vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile systems. Tactile stimulation received through touching,
hugging and play is critical for the development of praxis, or planned movement patterns. Touch
also activates the parasympathetic system lowering cortisol, adrenalin and anxiety. Nature and
green space has not only a calming influence on children, but also is attention restorative and
promotes learning.
The increase growth of social media, smartphones and digital devices is transforming our
kids lives in school and at home. Research has been found that even the youngest of our
children are migrating online, using tablets and smartphones, downloading apps. Consumer
Reports reported last year that more than 7.5 million American kids under the age of 13 have
joined Facebook, which technically requires users to be 13 years old to open an account. No one
has any idea of what all of this media and technology use will mean for our kids as they grow up.
By the time they're 2 years old, more than 90% of all American children have an online
history.At the age of 5, more than 50% regularly interact with a computer or tablet device, and
by the age of 7 or 8, many kids regulary play video games. Teenagers text an average of 3,400
times a month. The fact is, by the time there are in middle school, kids today are spending more
time with media than with their parents or teachers, and the challenges are vast from the millions

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of young people who regret by high school what they've already posted about themselves online
to the widely documented rise in cyberbullying to the hypersexualization of female characters in
video games.These challenges also include traditional media and the phenomenon of "ratings
creep" in the movies that our kids consume. Movies today even G-rated ones contain
significantly more sex and violence, on average, than movies with the same rating 10 or 20 years
ago.
The impact of heavy media and technology use on kids' social, emotional and cognitive
development is only beginning to be studied, and the emergent results are serious. While the
research is still in its early stages, it suggests that the Internet may actually be changing how our
brains work. Too much hypertext and multimedia content has been linked in some kids to limited
attention span, lower comprehension, poor focus, greater risk for depression and diminished
long.
I believe that technology does have a negative impact on us that most people dont know what it
is really doing to us so there should be a limit of technology use for everybody so that we won't
forget what to do in the real world for ourselves because we mostly have technology to do
everything for use and i do not want us to forget that we are still human and can still do things
for our self. Time spent using and communicating through technology takes time away from
taking face to face with others, socializing and maintaining our physical health.

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This graph show how technology impacts our lives in a negative way by showing how much we
use it every day.

Work Cited
"Advancement in Technology Good or Harm? by Jaykido." StudyMode. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.

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"High Tech High Touch: Technology and Our Search for Meaning." Scribd. Web. 04
Dec. 2014.
"How Technology Has Changed Our Lives by Andrealii." StudyMode. Web. 05 Dec.
2014
"How Technology Has Changed Our Lives in the Last Five Years." - The Center of
Technology. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.
Clinton, Chelsa. "Is the Internet Hurting Children." CNN. Cable News Network. Web. 18 Apr.
2016.
"10 Negative Effects of Technology." 26 Oct. 2013. Web. 18 Apr. 2016
Paula, Ella. "Obesity in Children and Technology." LIVESTRONG.COM. LIVESTRONG.COM,
11 Dec. 2015. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.