Technologies such as the World Wide Web are available to us basically anywhere and anytime with just the click of a button. We can now check in with friends and look up answers to our questions without ever having to buy a stamp or step foot into the library. When there is an advancement with something we think of it as getting better, right? Now, we can make purchases from overseas, we can video chat with co-workers in other provinces, and we can even order dinner without any complications or additional charges. However, are these advancements in technology really beneficial or do they hinder us? Perhaps it causes us to not rely on our own brains and abilities but to be dependent on computers and machines to do the thinking for us.
The English language is a result of words from various other languages being brought together to form one new language. English is one of the hardest languages to learn and rightfully so. Common rules such as "i before e except after c" are true less often than they are false. Now if we factor in technology and its implications on things such as spelling, grammar, and one's memory we realize we may no longer need to learn the rules to the very language we speak everyday.
Things like text messaging and some websites (such as Facebook or Twitter) with limited word counts have allowed the new generation (born after 1980) to come up with a short-handed muchly abbreviated language of their own. Research suggests that these technologies actually hinder us, in terms of things like grammar, instead of helping us. Abbreviating in text messages or in Tweets has actually caused us to become dumber. Words including "their", "until" and "which" are among the 15 most commonly misspelled words in the English language. Might I add these are words we have learned to spell in grade school?
Which brings me to my next point... More and more schools are starting to use laptops in the classroom. More teachers are expecting assignments to be typed up instead of written and time and time again we hear "use spellcheck". Back when I was in Elementary School (which really wasn't THAT long ago), if I didn't know how to spell a word I was told to go take a paper dictionary off the shelf and look the word up or sound it out. Now we are being told to use an electronic dictionary that may or may not give us the correct word we are looking for.
It's not just spelling and grammar being affected but other things as well. How many birthdays do we actually remember without Facebook telling us it is our cousin's birthday? How often do we find out that our best friend is in a relationship BEFORE her relationship status changes online? How many people can actually remember phone numbers or write letters and send pictures to family members abroad? Or have we sacrificed this personal contact in order to take advantage of technologies such as blogging websites and text messaging?
Having the world just a "click away" is not necessarily beneficial. Almost any topic we want information on we can pull up on websites such as Google in seconds. We aren't challenging ourselves and children may not be developing parts of their brains for memory. We can look anything and everything up that we want to due to this technology thing and so there's a lack of need to actually "learn things". So I re-iterate, do the pros outweigh the cons of technology advancements in today's society?
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