Andrew Dillard

English 104
Research Paper
Technology Has Finally Taken Over

John Smith was on a date; it was a woman he liked for a while but never had the
courage to ask out on a date. He spent days building up the courage to approach her and
ask her on a night on the town, he recited what he was going to say to her in the mirror
the morning before. He ask her, and she say yes. He was ecstatic that he finally was going
on a date with her; he looked forward to it all week. He picked out his favorite outfit and
took her to a dinner and a movie, however, the whole night his date was on her iPhone
checking Facebook. Her face was stuffed in a screen and barely had any actual
conversation with him. Weve come to a point in our cultural society where two people
cant enjoy another persons company without updating their Facebook status every ten
minutes. While thats just an example of what happens on an every day basis in our
culture, the underlying issue is that as a generation of people born into technology were
losing the ability to connect with one another on a social level. With the rapid increase of
social technology in todays day and age, are we benefitting from it?
With todays technology we have the ability to constantly with connect with
billions of people due to smart phones, laptops, and social media websites; the question
is, is it improving our social lives? One side of the argument states that it is not benefiting
us socially, and a majority of socializing is being done in the screen of a phone instead of
face to face. Then you can start to make the argument that constant use of social

technology is actually decreasing from our social and cultural lives. On the other end of
the spectrum some say the technology is improving our social lives. The main argument
there is that the ability to constantly connect with friends and family keeps everyone
closer together and drastically improves their social lives due to the convenient nature of
the smrtphone.
The rapid growth of social technology is not improving the populations social
lives. The constant use of smart phones, laptops, and social media websites detract from
the most important part of social connection, physical conversation and contact with
other human beings. If the growth of technology does not stop or slow in the near future,
nobody will have the ability to connect with another human being in person. In a world
full of iPhones, iPads, and iMacs, no one thinks about we anymore. Technology is
ruining our lives one text, Tweet, Instagram post, and Snapchat at a time.
June 19th 2007 marked the day of the release of the first iPhone. Ever since then
the world has changed, however, has it changed for the better? For the past eight years
social technology has been rapidly expanding. IPhones and other smart phones make it
easier to access social media sites due to the mobile nature of the cell phone. In 2004
MySpace and Facebook were launched, by December of that year Facebook already
reached one million users. By 2006 MySpace became the most popular social media site
in the United States, Twitter then was launched, and Facebook launches its news feed
feature to a mixed reaction. Users were not used to their every move being tracked in one
general stream. In April of 2008 Facebook became the most popular social networking
site, surpassing MySpace, which had been in first place since June 2006. In October of
2008 the app store opens via iTunes, this marks the social media revolution since people

were now using their social media sites by applications, making it easier than ever. June
25th of 2009 Michael Jackson dies, Twitter servers crashed after users sent 100,000 tweets
per hour. February of 2010 twitter users were sending 50 million tweets dailyin April of
2010 Facebook delivered more than half of all U.S. social medial referral traffic, In June
Twitter users were sending 65 million tweets per day, roughly 750 tweets per second, July
21st 2010 Facebook reached 500 million active users. The site reached the mark less than
18 months after it hit the 200 million active user mark. Since then having to communicate
with one another face to face is a thing of the past due to texting, calling, and video
calling. Now that its almost an inconvenience to not have a smart phone 61% of
Americans own a smart phone or other smart technology such as the iPad.
A majority of technology use (especially on smartphones) includes social media
use with Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and other social media sites. While
these luxuries have a time and a place in life, its being abused to the extent of which it
will begin to develop negative effects on our society. Or is it making social
communication easier and more efficient in our daily lives? Theres two sides to this
argument of smart technology and should therefore be examined on both sides.
The debate on the social effects of smartphone is becoming more and more
complicated therefore theres a few different sides to the argument. On one side of the
debate people agree that smartphone use is destroying our social skills and on the other
side of the debate people argue that smartphones are bettering our communication skills
between each other. On the one side that its devastating our communication skills Becca
Stanek writes Recent research also found that the mere presence of a cell phone detracts
from our ability to connect with other people, especially in meaningful or romantic

ways. (Stanek Becca) This proves that smartphones and social media are not bettering
the world socially due to the abusive tendencies people have with their smartphones. On
the other hand people also argue that smartphones are bettering our communication skills
due to the mobile and easily accessible nature of their norm. Smartphones are on the go,
you always have them with you and you have the ability to use it whenever you want.
Author John Jesensky writes Getting connected to social Medias helps people improve
them in all aspects. It provides a new avenue to interact with people and also paves way
to get better ideas. You drift away the complex in you and develop a positive attitude to
develop personally to favor social growth. (Jesensky John) This is an example of the
main points posed on the other side of this debate. Smartphone technology and social
media applications allow people to stay connected with one another easier and more
efficiently. Back on the side of the argument where smartphone use detracts from our
social skills, it may also be harming our social development. Doctor Stephanie Newman
writes, Families are feeling it, too. Ask any parent. Many teens seem to have fallen into
a tech sinkhole. And their constant texting and abuse of social media may even be
holding them back from attaining social and developmental milestones. This side of the
argument reasons that face-to-face communication is being lost among a younger
generation and is being replaced by communication via smartphones and other
technology, and that if it continues to progress at the rate it has been it will completely
destroy our social and communication skills. However others argue that smartphones
arent making us anti social at all, they argue that its actually improving our social lives.
Journalist Ericsson writes about how people are using social media and smartphone
technology when its appropriate to better their social lives. But, when youre alone in a

crowd of strangers, theres nothing wrong with exploring your online world online and
making connections that werent possible before. Thats what the Networked Society is
all about. (Ericsson) He makes the argument that the commute on the train to work
every morning was never a very social place to begin with. Instead of looking at your feet
ignoring the stranger next to you, you now have the ability to use that wasted time to
respond to emails, reply to texts from family members, and plan the day ahead.
Overall both sides make very sound and logical points, on one side smartphones
and social media are beginning to end our social communication skills with one another,
and on the other side it argues that the new technology is increasing our social skills and
makes it easier to do it as well.
Quick: whats the first thing you do when you wake up? Yawn? Hit the snooze
button? Go to the bathroom? Brush your teeth? If youre like 80% of 18-44-year-olds, the
answer is check my smartphone. (Stadd, Allison) As Ive previously stated weve
reached a point in time where advanced technology has taken over our lives. From the
phone in our pockets to the laptops in our backpacks were constantly surrounded by
unnecessary luxuries that were beginning to abuse. We now live in a world where
anything that we do can be instantly gratified by the push of a button, and thats all
people are doing. You go to a ball game? You better put a picture of the field on
Instagram with a horrendous filter over it. Go to a concert? Join a majority of the crowd
by raising your phone to take a video for Snapchat. Some asshole just cut you off in
traffic? If you dont tweet about it then people cant share in your frustration, and if you
didnt take a picture of yourself at the gym did you even go? To support this point
sociologist Lois B Defleur writes, Ogburn, of course, is well known for his discussion

of cultural lag, namely that beliefs, customs, and social institutions change more slowly
than the material aspects of society. He enumerated a number of causes of cultural lag,
including vested group interests, individual habits, and bureaucratic resistance. He
suggested that if technology continued to accumulate at an increasing rate, cultural lags
would also accumulate at an increasing rate. This increasing number of disjunctures
would inevitably lead to massive change or revolution. (Defleur, Lois B) A sociologist
wrote this in 1982, 33 years ago. Weve reached that massive change or revolution when
people started checking social media and other things on their smartphone first thing in
the morning. Now we have started to face the consequences of a revolution, social
behavior is changing and not for the better. The definition of a telephone has changed in
the matter of a generation, ask any 55 and older person in America what a telephone is
and a common answer would be a device that transfers audible noises through a wired
connection Thats all a telephone really is, however, anyone who was raised with
smartphones would define a telephone as much more than that. A majority of smartphone
use isnt talking on the phone, its app use, its social media use, and its Internet use. To
graduate from any major university youre required to take a communications or some
sort of speech class. Its required to take because students in college are losing the ability
to speak to another human being. People skills are becoming a thing of the past because
it almost isnt necessary anymore due to the other wide array of communication
technology. If we dont take a step back from these technologies we will lose
communication and social skills in our lives.
It took eight gigabytes worth of information to send a man to the moon; a
standard amount of memory in a smartphone is 16 or even 64 gigabytes, yet we fill our

smartphones with useless apps, games, and pictures of our dogs. You can easily access
the Internet with your smartphone, meaning you have access to the biggest source of
information in the universe. Still for a majority of the smartphone norm is primarily used
for social apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. These social sites are
taking over our social culture; you cant have dinner with someone without them
checking their phone for some reason or another. Its hard to have a conversation with
someone who has their face stuffed in a five-inch screen. Its come to the point where
owning a smartphone has become apart of our daily routine; wake up, check your social
media apps, get dressed, check the weather, use the GPS to get to where you need to be,
have a few minutes to kill? Check Facebook. Its ridiculous how much we truly use these
pieces of technology. Go to any concert and instead of seeing a raised lighter to your
favorite song its now replaced with the burning white LED light coming from a
smartphone trying to take a picture. Now along with worrying about drunk drivers on the
road we now have to worry about someone texting and driving. Weve reached a point in
technology where your fingerprint can unlock your phone, thats just unnecessary. In no
point in life do you need that to survive, yet if you dont have the newest smartphone it
seems like youre missing out on something great, something new, something that is
necessary in your everyday life. If technology doesnt slow down soon (or we at least
realize that all of this is just slightly unnecessary) our social culture will change forever,
and not for the better. Face to face interaction will be a thing of the past, people will
forget how to interact with one another in a social setting, and overall relationships will
crumble and fall.

Overall this is a very new problem in our world. Technology grew rapidly in the
past ten years and took over our culture. Now we as a civilization need to learn to adapt
to this new lifestyle and benefit from it rather than become damaged from it. If we use it
sparingly on a bus ride and use social media applications to get in contact with loved ones
we wont lose our social and communication skills. However if we sit on our phones all
day scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and the other popular
social media apps for hours at a time, we will lose the ability to interact socially with one
another. So what are you doing still reading this on your computer or smartphone? Go
outside and breath fresh air, go fishing, do something new, make a ship in a bottle, do
something worthwhile. We need to realize as a culture and a generation that life is what
you make of it, and its hard to make something with two hands when youre using both
of them for your phone.
Annotated Bibliography
Daniels, Dana. "Science Shows That Cell Phones Really Are Ruining Our Lives - NYU
Local." NYU Local. NYU Local, 04 Sept. 2014. Web. 09 Mar. 2015. While the source
wasn't found from scholarly articles it generates interesting points to my topic. Dana
Daniels the author of this article pulls in academic sources from Baylor University and
direct testimony from the generation most effected by the rapid advances in technology.
The article summarizes that easy access to technology is making a negative impact on
students who use them the most. I will use this to support my argument that the rapid
growth in technology and the use of them in my generation is having a negative effect on
the social part of our lives.(1)

Defleur, Lois B. "Technology, Social Change, and the Future of Sociology." The Pacific
Sociological Review. University of California Press, Oct. 1982. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. This
article was written by Lois B. Defleur who was the president of Binghamton University
from 1990 to 2010 which establishes her credibility. The article was written in 1982 but it
addresses all of the problems with technology associated with social issues. I plan to do
this article on the background information on the topic at hand.
Madden, Mary, Amanda Lenhart, and Meave Duggan. "Teens and Technology 2013." Pew
Research Center (n.d.): 1-19. Http://www.pewinternet.org/. The Berkman Center for
Internet and Society at Harvard University, 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. This article
was also worked on by Amanda Lenhart and several of her fellow writers who also work
for Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. This article goes into
more detailed statistics and facts about technology use, but this time it's not just about
teenagers. It's also about adults, different ethnic groups, and the connection between their
use of technology vs. teens. I will be using this article as raw data for it's statistics.
Newman, Stehpanie. "Is Technology Ruining Our Lives?" Psychology Today. Apologies to
Fraud, 5 Apr. 2013. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. Stephanie Newman, Ph.D., is a clinical
psychologist and psychoanalyst, as well as the author of Mad Men on the Couch. She is
also the author of "Is Technology ruining our lives?" Which raises the issue of how far
technology has come in the past decade and how people are utilizing it now. I will be
using this to strengthen my argument.
Stanek, Becca. "Science Shows Your Cell Phone Is Ruining Your Life - Even When You're Not
Using It." Mic. Time, 09 Dec. 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. In the article "Science Shows
Your Cell Phone Is Ruining Your Life Even When You're Not Using It" author Becca

Stanek a recent graduate of DePauw University, she has previously written for TIME and
The Oregonian talks about in detail how the use of smart phones are controlling the
owners of them. She uses statistics and other research to create her credibility. I will be
using this article to support my side of the academic debate.

"Teen Smartphone Addicts Suffer From Laundry List of Woes Including Aggression, Anxiety,
Depression, Withdrawal, Inability to Concentrate... - Addiction Treatment | Elements |
Drug Rehab Treatment Centers." Addiction Treatment Elements Drug Rehab Treatment
Centers. N.p., 30 May 2013. Web. 04 Apr. 2015. (11)

Stadd, Allison. "79% Of People 18-44 Have Their Smartphones With Them 22 Hours A
Day [STUDY]." SocialTimes. IDC, 2 Apr. 2013. Web. 04 Apr. 2015.
Ericsson. "Smartphones Do Not Make Us Anti-social." The Networked Society Blog
Smartphones Do Not Make Us Antisocial Comments. N.p., 29 Jan. 2015. Web. 15 Apr.
2015.
Jesensky, John. "Positive Impacts of Smartphones on Social Society - Trffc Media." Trffc
Media RSS. N.p., 13 Sept. 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Wood, Jennie. "Key Dates in the Evolution and Increasing Influence of Social
Media." Infoplease. Infoplease, 27 Apr. 2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.