Question

Write a Cause and Effect Essay. Prompt: Choose ONE of the following topics for your essay: 1. What impact does frequent violence (either from war or street violence) have on a community? 2. What effect does social media have on real-life communications? 3. What are the effects of modern technology on children? The Exploratory Essay must have (500 words minimum)

Answer 1

WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY ON CHILDREN

Introduction

Earlier, children had enough opportunity to engage in outdoor activities, group play, meeting relatives and spending time with elders. With the invention of all the technologies starting from television, computers, laptop, mobile phones, play stations and tablets have impacted this generation to a great extent. The changing life style and the increasing amount of technologies have caused more problems to everyone, especially the children.

Health Related Problems - Children have lost their play time outside because of the technologies. They keep watching television, play in the play station and play in the tablets thus not playing outside. This causes obesity and eye problems in the long run. Their physical inability makes them lazy and thus becoming more irritant.

Academic Performance – More screen time impacts the cognitive ability of the children as it affects their thinking pattern, creativity and imagination. They lose their concentration and start to live in an imaginary world which they construct with the help of the TV programmes and the videogames that they play. They lose track of their cognitive thinking thus not performing well.

Social Relations – Children because of their technology time forget to mingle with other children, speak with the relatives and at the end not even with their parents. So, they are not capable of communicating with others in a social set-up. Their emotional intelligence is very weak, so they often quarrel with others. They become very possessive and materialistic in their relations.

Psychological Problems – The children’s character and attitude are shaped by the TV programmes and the videogames because according to Observational Learning, children learn more by observing and watching others. Violent behaviours in the children are mostly developed through the videogames. Both the parents are busy either working or they themselves are busy with technology. This reduces the quality time that they could have. Parents also leave their children with the gadgets in order to spend time alone.

Future Implications – As children grow, they also grow with the help of the technology thus growing very weak. They become weak without technology and they become disabled when technology is not allowed. If we look at the youngsters today, they are very busy with technologies. They sit together but communicate through their mobiles. They use lots of social networking sites to establish contacts with people who are far away from them thus ending up in some trouble. They also copy everything using google and other search engines.

Conclusion – Technology itself is not bad but when it is misused, it’s going to be one of the worst and dangerous companion one could have. Technology makes children lazy, makes them less creative and physically ill. The psychological implications technology brings should not be underestimated.

Parents have the responsibility to control their children and facilitate the use of technology. They should also facilitate more outdoor games. They need to spend more time with their children in order to help them engaged in more productive tasks. They need more personal time and positive role models which only the parents can give.