Modern technologies have long become an integral part of people’s lives. The use of computers, mobile phones and the Internet for communication, work, and entertainment has become indispensable and even ordinary. But how does this affect the thinking, memory, and personality of a person? How does the decision-making process change? Can people now do without the modern achievements of science and technology? Indeed, people no longer represent their lives without technologies that have brought many benefits to society, such as the positive achievements in medicine, but the negative impact of technology is also felt by humanity.
Modern Technologies and Their Impact on Society
The modern world is full of all sorts of novelties in the science, technology, and medicine spheres. People have not possessed such knowledge in different fields before. Today, figuratively speaking, a person can get news from the pocket, connect to a network that exists only in the information field, and send a message to a person who is thousands of miles away. Thanks to information technology, it is possible to get to know people who live far away, in other countries and cities (Yamamoto & Ananou, 2015).
Technologies have brought with them a lot of interesting and useful inventions from biomaterials to artificial hands, from an artificial kidney to contact lenses that train eye muscles at night, from high-speed planes to high-speed trains that save time, from electronic libraries, online universities, and courses to advanced deep earth drilling rigs. Modern technologies are called upon to serve humanity, to help it reach even greater heights.
However, not all technologies are beneficial to humans. It often happens the benefit turns to negative result. For example, modern weapons can destroy both nature and human lives in frightening proportions. The industry ejects smokes and toxic waste into the water, invades the earth’s interior in search of resources. A plastic waste does not decompose naturally and is stored in nature for a long time. In the Pacific Ocean, a new “continent” of floating garbage has already settled down.
Now the modern technologies are faced with the task of finding effective ways of purifying the environment, recycling garbage. Also, it is necessary to develop alternative energy sources, because the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves are exhausted, while the world economy is built on them. Soon, people have to find a replacement for present energy sources (Commoner, 2014).
Technologies created by talented people themselves can be useful as well as can do harm depending on how to use them. Using a smartphone, for example, a person can breed gossip. A person can spend the whole day with computer shooters. Each technology should be used wisely, and people should understand its true utility (Galbreath, 2015).
Technologies in Medicine
Modern technologies allowed making serious breakthroughs in the field of medicine and save millions of lives. The ultra-precise equipment made it possible to carry out complex operations, which no one had ever thought about a decade ago. At the present level, it is possible to treat many diseases that previously did not give the patient a hope for a full life. Today, information about conducting operations using nanotechnology seems sometimes fantastic.
At present, scientists are already beginning to be selected to address the issue of donor organs. It has long been announced that this problem will be eliminated on its own after the equipment for growing organs in the laboratory is created. And now it already exists. Moreover, at present, there are already first data on the practical use of such equipment. It is thanks to modern technical achievements that diagnostic techniques such as endoscopy, ultrasound, computer, and also magnetic resonance imaging are now available (Fermont, Douw, Vondeling, & IJzerman, 2016).
The achievements of science in medicine are truly enormous. First and foremost, doctors were able to successfully treat those diseases that previously did not leave patients with chances for a normal life. In addition, many ailments have now become possible to diagnose at the earliest stages of their development. Also, medical innovations have helped to increase the life expectancy of many patients significantly. Over the last century, this indicator has risen by about 20 years and is consistently growing at present.
The most important issue that technologically can be possible is human cloning. It is one of the most important in the agenda of modern bioethics. Experts believe these studies have a serious practical and scientific significance for genetics. However, all the work on cloning (especially in the case of sheep Dolly) caused an unprecedented stir in the society.
Conclusion
Even though modern society is reliant on technology people should adhere to the ethical approach to system creation, information forming, and models of control that would allow engaging society with science and technology as it develops. To date, due to the negative attitude of all religious faiths to experiments on human cloning, such works are carried out only in some countries of the world. Experiments on humans are still prohibited. People must embed ethical considerations into the way of thinking about the future connected with the technologies.
References
Commoner, B. (2014). The closing circle: Nature, man, and technology. New York, US: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Fermont, J. M., Douw, K. H., Vondeling, H., & IJzerman, M. J. (2016). Ranking medical innovations according to perceived health benefit. Health policy and technology, 5(2), 156-165.
Galbreath, D. J. (2015). How to embrace technology without dooming humanity to destruction. The Conversation. Web.
Yamamoto, J., & Ananou, S. (2015). Humanity in the digital age: Cognitive, social, emotional, and ethical implications. Contemporary Educational Technology, 6(1), 1-18.