Modern Technology and Its Effect on Education - Assignment Example

?. Modern Technology and its effects on Education and Careers The essence of social media applications Internet provides us with various social networks through which we can contact our friends. The internet provides us with a friendly interface for easier interaction with our connected friends. A social media is a means of interaction among people where they create, share, exchange and comment among themselves in virtual communities and networks. In addition to this, the social media allows creation and exchange of different user-generated content through internet-based applications. The social media employs mobile and web-based technologies to create a highly interactive platform through which individuals and communities share ideas. There are various social networks such as, Face book, Twitter, MySpace, 2go, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinteterst among others. Social media differs from the traditional media due to the high quality, reach, frequency, usability, immediacy and permanency. Study shows that people spend more time on social media than any other site in the internet. In U.S., the internet users increased their total time on social media by 37% to 121 billion minutes in July 2012 compared to 88 billion minutes in July 2011. The social media comes along with many benefits (Zhang, 2007). First, social media has significantly influenced the way young people interact with each other and the whole world. The youth use the internet to source important, engage, construct and maintain networks. The internet has also helped the young to transform their relationship with each other, their families and the whole community as well. Networks such as FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace allow an exchange of photos and important links. Second, the social network acts as a great source of information for entrepreneurs and individuals who invest in the activities, which the youth prefer. The investors obtain information on various opportunities on which they could make viable investments. The youth do post on the social media about their likes and interest such as dressing mode and entertainment. These are beneficial to the potential investors. Thirdly, advertising and marketing through the social network is possible by creation of various pages of a given company where the internet users learn about them. The social media users like these pages and thus they obtain information about the existence and popularity of various products. In addition, social media provides an interface through which the politicians carry out their campaign programs. This is because the youth form the highest percent of voters and in the social networks hence, the politicians through the political pages easily capture them. Social networks have helped to eliminate tribalism. This is because the youth intermingle with many people countrywide from all tribes hence there are reduced instances of tribalism. Political leaders also interact through FaceBook and Twitter pages thereby minimizing tribalism. Jobs opportunities have also arisen from social networks (Zhang, 2007). The employer advertises any job in the various pages in FaceBook and Twitter and interested and qualified individuals apply and emerge with a job. This has helped reduce the level of unemployment and has boosted economic growth globally. 2. The effects of modern technology in education and careers Information technology has helped me acquire my educational goals through various extensive ways. The most important area of the technology is the element of the internet. It has helped me acquire a huge information base. I would just key in queries in search engines and then select the best results. Modern technology has helped me acquire knowledge on the best areas to carry out my study and this is through the internet, which provides quality information on the available schools. There are online admission to the university and high schools. These effort s have reduced the paperwork involved and cost of travelling. There has arisen online teaching where some teaching is through the internet. This has helped me since I can obtain my class work and assignment through the campus website. The online teaching has helped minimize the cost of learning and also saved a lot of time, which I utilize, doing other constructive tasks. Technology assisted me when I was choosing my courses. The internet provided me with the details of the courses that are in high demand in the job market. This helped me choose the appropriate field on which to specialize. Since each course has its area of application, the information I acquired helped me to make appropriate choice of the course to undertake in campus. Technology helps in the storage of information. Digital libraries require no physical space where students and teachers worldwide can access the library simultaneously. Compact devices have replaced notebooks while the keyboard and mouse have replaced the writing material. Large quantity of data is stored in the tiny memory chips. Thus, it becomes easier, cheaper and less time to save data due to technology Though the internet has its numerous advantages, there are drawbacks, which have negative impacts on my academic goals. One is the temptation to spend a lot time in the internet and compromise the time for personal studies or other assignments. The more time spent online combined with the decreasing support for physical education leads to child obesity and negatively affects the development of social skills. There is probable loss of communication skills and interactive abilities between the students and teachers, and students to peers due to increased access to knowledge. Advancement in technology does not require these skills. Previously, children went to school to acquire knowledge on conflict resolution and socialization but this is not the case due to rapid changes in technology. Technology development has led to discrimination. The poor are not able to acquire the internet. Their children may live without exposure to computers and joins poor district schools with limited computers where they may use a computer occasionally. This puts them at a disadvantage in learning the technological functions (Zhang, 2007). Due to technology, traditional skills and exercises are abandoned. Use of calculators reduces benefits of manual calculations, which is beneficial in deepening brain activity and mental capability. Technology deprives the student reasoning efforts and crucial mental exercises. This technology advancement has exposed students to misleading information and plagiarism. References Zhang, L. (2007). Modern technologies in Web services research. Hershey: IGI Pub. Read More