Technology: Boon and curse for human being

Laxman Raila- Kathmandu: Technology means any product or service for human mind that aids in skills, process, formulas, methods, machines, etc. used for solving problems or to invent new useful things. The glance of today’s modern world has been changed with the rapid development in the pace of technology. This gigantic world has been transformed into small village by the technology. It has played key role to improve and upgrade the living standard of the people. Technology has been boon for the human being however it has also been curse for them too.

Today technology gives us the opportunity to watch the speech delivered by the president of America, Mr. Joe Biden in New York of America, live, being in New Road of Nepal. This means we can know about each and every event that takes place in every corner of the world of the world sitting on a table with the help of technology. Development of various social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Viber, Imo, WhatsApp, and similar apps has connected people around the world and has developed the love, compassion, mutual-respect, friendship and feeling of brotherhood among them. Similarly, technology has saved the valuable time of the human being. For example, to pay electricity bill people should not stay in long line that consumes hours of time, they can pay electricity bill through online within a minute. Similarly, to know the latest information of fashion wears, they do not need to visit market, they can know details regarding it through the internet and they can order it in their own home with one click.

Technology has provided luxury to the people to work from home and earn lucrative incomes. For example, people can do various online jobs such as freelance writing, online marketing, teaching, graphic designing, youtuber etc. Moreover technology had been very useful for the students during the peak pandemic time. Due to pandemic all the sectors of the economy along with educational sectors were really hit hard. Parents were worried about their children’s future due to the uncertainty brought by the pandemic. But with the development of applications like zoom meeting, Microsoft team, google meet and few others had helped students to take online classes and get engaged in their study. In addition, it also helped the students to learn more about their subject matter and learn new skills. For example, if Ram does not clearly understand the lecture on topic” conceptual framework” delivered by his lecturer then he can take the help of YouTube where he can find the lectures delivered by various skilled and qualified lecturers on that topic. Similarly, if Ram has guitar, flute, harmonium or any other musical instruments at home then he can learn to play them watching on YouTube. Use of artificial intelligence like google maps, face detection, robots, virtual assistants, chatbot, E-payments, etc. has made the human life more comfortable and happier.

Technology has brought revolution in the field of medical science too. Development of various technologies has helped to detect, cure and manage the various illness of the people. For example, scientists have developed various technologies to treat deadly illness like cancer such as surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and hormone. Scientists are developing the new technologies in future such as personalized vaccines, cell therapy, gene editing, microbiome that helps to effectively treat cancer. Similarly, scientists have invented artificial eyes (Bionic eyes) which is absolutely great invention through which even blind people can see the world and people can transplant kidneys, lungs. Heart, hairs, lever by the help of technology, etc. Moreover, various pills are developed to manage the other chronic illness such as asthma, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and other psychological problems that provides relief to the sufferers. In addition, medical thermometer, stethoscope, x-ray, antibiotic, spectacles, CT scanner and MRI machine, sphygmomanometer, etc. are other inventions that has brought revolution in medical field.

While applauding technology by regarding it as” boon”, we cannot ignore the fact that it has been “curse” for human being too. It has spoiled the life and future career of the youngsters in present context. For example, we can notice that the youngsters are wasting their valuable time playing games, watching videos, using social networking sites excessively by disregarding to their studies, household works, and social life. Similarly, nowadays porn addiction among the youngsters are rising significantly due to easy access to the internet and there are various unnecessary ads that tempt the youngsters to reach to the porn movies which parents can even hardly know that their children are porn addict. Due to the porn addiction youngsters are engaging in criminal activities like rape, sexual harassment, molestations etc. In addition unknowingly parents have made their kids gadget addict to get rid of their annoyance in their job or to persuade them to eat meal. They play the videos of kids’ preference and let them to watch for many hours. Long exposures to gadgets create various effects on the health of the kids and youngsters such as stress, aggressiveness, eye strain, bad postures, weak memory power, poor concentration, and many more.

Crime rates in the society has soared due to the technology. For example, criminals are targeting the young girls on social media where they allure them to fall in relationship with them by using their various strategies. They even persuade the girls to send their nude photos or videos in message and later they use those private messages, photos, videos to blackmail them to fulfill their demands. Many girls are raped and killed, kidnapped, sold for prostitutions by those opportunist criminals and some girls even commit suicide due to black mailing. Moreover, with the help of technology, hackers have become more active nowadays. They hack the Facebook account of people whom they have targeted for their criminal act, they do research of how their targeted person speaks with his friends, family, relatives. After being well known about the person’s way of communicating and behavior, criminals communicate in the same way as that person used to and they request the person’s friends, family, and relatives to send them money as he immediately needs due to emergency situations or problems.

Technology has made the international drug trader easier to use Nepal for the expansion of their business activities. They appoint agents in Nepal who can be Nepalese or foreigners by offering certain commissions to attract the youth for drug and to sell them. Drug addiction among the youth has been significantly rising in Nepal. One study has shown that more than 90% of the total drug addicts in Nepal have started using drug prior to the age of 16, The large numbers of drug addicts have been found to be between the ages of 16 to 20. Technology has made a person alone in the mass of people and has ruined their physical communication among them too. Similarly, technology has become prime cause of increase in divorce rates in the society. For example, couples who spend more time on social media has less time to communicate with each other, go for outing and other various social functions together. This causes less satisfaction, conflict, and high level of depression and anxiety among them. In addition, couples who spend more time on social media may have hidden love affairs with others which can ultimately leads to divorce.

Lifestyle of the people has become worse due to the excessive use of technology. For example, people who are addicted to technology become lazy. reluctant to go to outside and do physical exercises, they even skip their important works getting indulged in the technology. People do not show mercy to the gadgets even while consuming foods, they don’t know what meals are they eating, its quantity and taste as their full concentration is over the gadgets. Moreover, some people have habit to stay for late night and wake up too late the next morning. People are consuming more junk and fast foods due to laziness to cook as those foods can be easily ordered and they get the facility of home delivery. Due to this poor lifestyle, people are suffering from various lifestyle diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure etc. Even at younger age thousands of people are dying from these illnesses in the world.

To sum up, technology has been boon for the human being for bringing drastic change to improve and upgrade the living standard of people however, it has also been a curse for the human being due to its negative sides.

Tags: Article, Blog, Impacts, Technology