impact of media and technology essay

How Technology Affects Our Lives – Essay

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Do you wish to explore the use of information technology in daily life? Essays like the one below discuss this topic in depth. Read on to find out more.

Introduction

Technology in communication, technology in healthcare, technology in government, technology in education, technology in business, negative impact of technology.

Technology is a vital component of life in the modern world. People are so dependent on technology that they cannot live without it. Technology is important and useful in all areas of human life today. It has made life easy and comfortable by making communication and transport faster and easier (Harrington, 2011, p.35).

It has made education accessible to all and has improved healthcare services. Technology has made the world smaller and a better place to live. Without technology, fulfilling human needs would be a difficult task. Before the advent of technology, human beings were still fulfilling their needs. However, with technology, fulfillment of needs has become easier and faster.

It is unimaginable how life would be without technology. Technology is useful in the following areas: transport, communication, interaction, education, healthcare, and business (Harrington, 2011, p.35). Despite its benefits, technology has negative impacts on society. Examples of negative impacts of technology include the development of controversial medical practices such as stem cell research and the embracement of solitude due to changes in interaction methods. For example, social media has changed the way people interact.

Technology has led to the introduction of cloning, which is highly controversial because of its ethical and moral implications. The growth of technology has changed the world significantly and has influenced life in a great way. Technology is changing every day and continuing to influence areas of communication, healthcare, governance, education, and business.

Technology has contributed fundamentally in improving people’s lifestyles. It has improved communication by incorporating the Internet and devices such as mobile phones into people’s lives. The first technological invention to have an impact on communication was the discovery of the telephone by Graham Bell in 1875.

Since then, other inventions such as the Internet and the mobile phone have made communication faster and easier. For example, the Internet has improved ways through which people exchange views, opinions, and ideas through online discussions (Harrington, 2011, p.38). Unlike in the past when people who were in different geographical regions could not easily communicate, technology has eradicated that communication barrier. People in different geographical regions can send and receive messages within seconds.

Online discussions have made it easy for people to keep in touch. In addition, they have made socializing easy. Through online discussions, people find better solutions to problems by exchanging opinions and ideas (Harrington, 2011, p.39). Examples of technological inventions that facilitate online discussions include emails, online forums, dating websites, and social media sites.

Another technological invention that changed communication was the mobile phone. In the past, people relied on letters to send messages to people who were far away. Mobile phones have made communication efficient and reliable. They facilitate both local and international communication.

In addition, they enable people to respond to emergencies and other situations that require quick responses. Other uses of cell phones include the transfer of data through applications such as infrared and Bluetooth, entertainment, and their use as miniature personal computers (Harrington, 2011, p.40).

The latest versions of mobile phones are fitted with applications that enable them to access the Internet. This provides loads of information in diverse fields for mobile phone users. For business owners, mobile phones enhance the efficiency of their business operations because they are able to keep in touch with their employees and suppliers (Harrington, 2011, p.41). In addition, they are able to receive any information about the progress of their business in a short period of time.

Technology has contributed significantly to the healthcare sector. For example, it has made vital contributions in the fields of disease prevention and health promotion. Technology has aided in the understanding of the pathophysiology of diseases, which has led to the prevention of many diseases. For example, understanding the pathophysiology of the gastrointestinal tract and blood diseases has aided in their effective management (Harrington, 2011, p.49).

Technology has enabled practitioners in the medical field to make discoveries that have changed the healthcare sector. These include the discovery that peptic ulceration is caused by a bacterial infection and the development of drugs to treat schizophrenia and depressive disorders that afflict a greater portion of the population (Harrington, 2011, p.53). The development of vaccines against polio and measles led to their total eradication.

Children who are vaccinated against these diseases are not at risk of contracting the diseases. The development of vaccines was facilitated by technology, without which certain diseases would still be causing deaths in great numbers. Vaccines play a significant role in disease prevention.

Technology is used in health promotion in different ways. First, health practitioners use various technological methods to improve health care. eHealth refers to the use of information technology to improve healthcare by providing information on the Internet to people. In this field, technology is used in three main ways.

These include its use as an intervention tool, its use in conducting research studies, and its use for professional development (Lintonen et al, 2008, p. 560). According to Lintonenet al (2008), “e-health is the use of emerging information and communications technology, especially the internet, to improve or enable health and healthcare.” (p.560). It is largely used to support health care interventions that are mainly directed towards individual persons. Secondly, it is used to improve the well-being of patients during recovery.

Bedside technology has contributed significantly in helping patients recover. For example, medical professionals have started using the Xbox computer technology to develop a revolutionary process that measures limb movements in stroke patients (Tanja-Dijkstra, 2011, p.48). This helps them recover their manual competencies. The main aim of this technology is to help stroke patients do more exercises to increase their recovery rate and reduce the frequency of visits to the hospital (Lintonen et al, 2008, p. 560).

The government has utilized technology in two main areas. These include the facilitation of the delivery of citizen services and the improvement of defense and national security (Scholl, 2010, p.62). The government is spending large sums of money on wireless technologies, mobile gadgets, and technological applications. This is in an effort to improve their operations and ensure that the needs of citizens are fulfilled.

For example, in order to enhance safety and improve service delivery, Cisco developed a networking approach known as Connected Communities. This networking system connects citizens with the government and the community. The system was developed to improve the safety and security of citizens, improve service delivery by the government, empower citizens, and encourage economic development.

The government uses technology to provide information and services to citizens. This encourages economic development and fosters social inclusion (Scholl, 2010, p.62). Technology is also useful in improving national security and the safety of citizens. It integrates several wireless technologies and applications that make it easy for security agencies to access and share important information effectively. Technology is widely used by security agencies to reduce vulnerability to terrorism.

Technologically advanced gadgets are used in airports, hospitals, shopping malls, and public buildings to screen people for explosives and potentially dangerous materials or gadgets that may compromise the safety of citizens (Bonvillian and Sharp, 2001, par2). In addition, security agencies use surveillance systems to restrict access to certain areas. They also use technologically advanced screening and tracking methods to improve security in places that are prone to terrorist attacks (Bonvillian and Sharp, 2001, par3).

Technology has made significant contributions in the education sector. It is used to enhance teaching and learning through the use of different technological methods and resources. These include classrooms with digital tools such as computers that facilitate learning, online learning schools, blended learning, and a wide variety of online learning resources (Barnett, 1997, p.74). Digital learning tools that are used in classrooms facilitate learning in different ways. They expand the scope of learning materials and experiences for students, improve student participation in learning, make learning easier and quick, and reduce the cost of education (Barnett, 1997, p.75). For example, online schools and free learning materials reduce the costs that are incurred in purchasing learning materials. They are readily available online. In addition, they reduce the expenses that are incurred in program delivery.

Technology has improved the process of teaching by introducing new methods that facilitate connected teaching. These methods virtually connect teachers to their students. Teachers are able to provide learning materials and the course content to students effectively. In addition, teachers are able to give students an opportunity to personalize learning and access all learning materials that they provide. Technology enables teachers to serve the academic needs of different students.

In addition, it enhances learning because the problem of distance is eradicated, and students can contact their teachers easily (Barnett, 1997, p.76). Technology plays a significant role in changing how teachers teach. It enables educators to evaluate the learning abilities of different students in order to devise teaching methods that are most efficient in the achievement of learning objectives.

Through technology, teachers are able to relate well with their students, and they are able to help and guide them. Educators assume the role of coaches, advisors, and experts in their areas of teaching. Technology helps make teaching and learning enjoyable and gives it meaning that goes beyond the traditional classroom set-up system (Barnett, 1997, p.81).

Technology is used in the business world to improve efficiency and increase productivity. Most important, technology is used as a tool to foster innovation and creativity (Ray, 2004, p.62). Other benefits of technology to businesses include the reduction of injury risk to employees and improved competitiveness in the markets. For example, many manufacturing businesses use automated systems instead of manual systems. These systems eliminate the costs of hiring employees to oversee manufacturing processes.

They also increase productivity and improve the accuracy of the processes because of the reduction of errors (Ray, 2004, p.63). Technology improves productivity due to Computer-aided Manufacturing (CAM), Computer-integrated Manufacturing (CIM), and Computer-aided Design (CAD). CAM reduces labor costs, increases the speed of production, and ensures a higher level of accuracy (Hunt, 2008, p.44). CIM reduces labor costs, while CAD improves the quality and standards of products and reduces the cost of production.

Another example of the use of technology in improving productivity and output is the use of database systems to store data and information. Many businesses store their data and other information in database systems that make accessibility of information fast, easy, and reliable (Pages, 2010, p.44).

Technology has changed how international business is conducted. With the advent of e-commerce, businesses became able to trade through the Internet on the international market (Ray, 2004, p.69). This means that there is a large market for products and services. In addition, it implies that most markets are open 24 hours a day.

For example, customers can shop for books or music on Amazon.com at any time of the day. E-commerce has given businesses the opportunity to expand and operate internationally. Countries such as China and Brazil are taking advantage of opportunities presented by technology to grow their economy.

E-commerce reduces the complexities involved in conducting international trade (Ray, 2004, p.71). Its many components make international trade easy and fast. For example, a BOES system allows merchants to execute trade transactions in any language or currency, monitor all steps involved in transactions, and calculate all costs involved, such as taxes and freight costs (Yates, 2006, p.426).

Financial researchers claim that a BOES system is capable of reducing the cost of an international transaction by approximately 30% (Ray, 2004, p.74). BOES enables businesses to import and export different products through the Internet. This system of trade is efficient and creates a fair environment in which small and medium-sized companies can compete with large companies that dominate the market.

Despite its many benefits, technology has negative impacts. It has negative impacts on society because it affects communication and has changed the way people view social life. First, people have become more anti-social because of changes in methods of socializing (Harrington, 2008, p.103). Today, one does not need to interact physically with another person in order to establish a relationship.

The Internet is awash with dating sites that are full of people looking for partners and friends. The ease of forming friendships and relationships through the Internet has discouraged many people from engaging in traditional socializing activities. Secondly, technology has affected the economic statuses of many families because of high rates of unemployment. People lose jobs when organizations and businesses embrace technology (Harrington, 2008, p.105).

For example, many employees lose their jobs when manufacturing companies replace them with automated machines that are more efficient and cost-effective. Many families are struggling because of the lack of a constant stream of income. On the other hand, technology has led to the closure of certain companies because the world does not need their services. This is prompted by technological advancements.

For example, the invention of digital cameras forced Kodak to close down because people no longer needed analog cameras. Digital cameras replaced analog cameras because they are easy to use and efficient. Many people lost their jobs due to changes in technology. Thirdly, technology has made people lazy and unwilling to engage in strenuous activities (Harrington, 2008, p.113).

For example, video games have replaced physical activities that are vital in improving the health of young people. Children spend a lot of time watching television and playing video games such that they have little or no time for physical activities. This has encouraged the proliferation of unhealthy eating habits that lead to conditions such as diabetes.

Technology has elicited heated debates in the healthcare sector. Technology has led to medical practices such as stem cell research, implant embryos, and assisted reproduction. Even though these practices have been proven viable, they are highly criticized on the grounds of their moral implications on society.

There are many controversial medical technologies, such as gene therapy, pharmacogenomics, and stem cell research (Hunt, 2008, p.113). The use of genetic research in finding new cures for diseases is imperative and laudable. However, the medical implications of these disease treatment methods and the ethical and moral issues associated with the treatment methods are critical. Gene therapy is mostly rejected by religious people.

They claim that it is against natural law to alter the gene composition of a person in any way (Hunt, 2008, p.114). The use of embryonic stem cells in research is highly controversial, unlike the use of adult stem cells. The controversy exists because of the source of the stem cells. The cells are obtained from embryos. There is a belief among many people that life starts after conception.

Therefore, using embryos in research means killing them to obtain their cells for research. The use of embryo cells in research is considered in the same light as abortion: eliminating a life (Hunt, 2008, p.119). These issues have led to disagreements between the science and the religious worlds.

Technology is a vital component of life in the modern world. People are so dependent on technology that they cannot live without it. Technology is important and useful in all areas of human life today.

It has made life easy and comfortable by making communication faster and travel faster, making movements between places easier, making actions quick, and easing interactions. Technology is useful in the following areas of life: transport, communication, interaction, education, healthcare, and business. Despite its benefits, technology has negative impacts on society.

Technology has eased communication and transport. The discovery of the telephone and the later invention of the mobile phone changed the face of communication entirely. People in different geographical regions can communicate easily and in record time. In the field of health care, technology has made significant contributions in disease prevention and health promotion. The development of vaccines has eradicated certain diseases, and the use of the Internet is vital in promoting health and health care.

The government uses technology to enhance the delivery of services to citizens and the improvement of defense and security. In the education sector, teaching and learning processes have undergone significant changes owing to the impact of technology. Teachers are able to relate to different types of learners, and the learners have access to various resources and learning materials. Businesses benefit from technology through the reduction of costs and increased efficiency of business operations.

Despite the benefits, technology has certain disadvantages. It has negatively affected human interactions and socialization and has led to widespread unemployment. In addition, its application in the healthcare sector has elicited controversies due to certain medical practices such as stem cell research and gene therapy. Technology is very important and has made life easier and more comfortable than it was in the past.

Barnett, L. (1997). Using Technology in Teaching and Learning . New York: Routledge.

Bonvillian, W., and Sharp, K. (2011). Homeland Security Technology . Retrieved from https://issues.org/bonvillian/ .

Harrington, J. (2011). Technology and Society . New York: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Hunt, S. (2008). Controversies in Treatment Approaches: Gene Therapy, IVF, Stem Cells and Pharmagenomics. Nature Education , 19(1), 112-134.

Lintonen, P., Konu, A., and Seedhouse, D. (2008). Information Technology in Health Promotion. Health Education Research , 23(3), 560-566.

Pages, J., Bikifalvi, A., and De Castro Vila, R. (2010). The Use and Impact of Technology in Factory Environments: Evidence from a Survey of Manufacturing Industry in Spain. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology , 47(1), 182-190.

Ray, R. (2004). Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses . New York: AMACOM Div American Management Association.

Scholl, H. (2010). E-government: Information, Technology and Transformation . New York: M.E. Sharpe.

Tanja-Dijkstra, K. (2011). The Impact of Bedside Technology on Patients’ Well-Being. Health Environments Research & Design Journal (HERD) , 5(1), 43-51.

Yates, J. (2006). How Business Enterprises use Technology: Extending the Demand-Side Turn. Enterprise and Society , 7(3), 422-425.

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Why social media has changed the world — and how to fix it

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Are you on social media a lot? When is the last time you checked Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram? Last night? Before breakfast? Five minutes ago?

If so, you are not alone — which is the point, of course. Humans are highly social creatures. Our brains have become wired to process social information, and we usually feel better when we are connected. Social media taps into this tendency.

“Human brains have essentially evolved because of sociality more than any other thing,” says Sinan Aral, an MIT professor and expert in information technology and marketing. “When you develop a population-scale technology that delivers social signals to the tune of trillions per day in real-time, the rise of social media isn’t unexpected. It’s like tossing a lit match into a pool of gasoline.”

The numbers make this clear. In 2005, about 7 percent of American adults used social media. But by 2017, 80 percent of American adults used Facebook alone. About 3.5 billion people on the planet, out of 7.7 billion, are active social media participants. Globally, during a typical day, people post 500 million tweets, share over 10 billion pieces of Facebook content, and watch over a billion hours of YouTube video.

As social media platforms have grown, though, the once-prevalent, gauzy utopian vision of online community has disappeared. Along with the benefits of easy connectivity and increased information, social media has also become a vehicle for disinformation and political attacks from beyond sovereign borders.

“Social media disrupts our elections, our economy, and our health,” says Aral, who is the David Austin Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Now Aral has written a book about it. In “The Hype Machine,” published this month by Currency, a Random House imprint, Aral details why social media platforms have become so successful yet so problematic, and suggests ways to improve them.

As Aral notes, the book covers some of the same territory as “The Social Dilemma,” a documentary that is one of the most popular films on Netflix at the moment. But Aral’s book, as he puts it, "starts where ‘The Social Dilemma’ leaves off and goes one step further to ask: What can we do about it?”

“This machine exists in every facet of our lives,” Aral says. “And the question in the book is, what do we do? How do we achieve the promise of this machine and avoid the peril? We’re at a crossroads. What we do next is essential, so I want to equip people, policymakers, and platforms to help us achieve the good outcomes and avoid the bad outcomes.”

When “engagement” equals anger

“The Hype Machine” draws on Aral’s own research about social networks, as well as other findings, from the cognitive sciences, computer science, business, politics, and more. Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles, for instance, have found that people obtain bigger hits of dopamine — the chemical in our brains highly bound up with motivation and reward — when their social media posts receive more likes.

At the same time, consider a 2018 MIT study by Soroush Vosoughi, an MIT PhD student and now an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth College; Deb Roy, MIT professor of media arts and sciences and executive director of the MIT Media Lab; and Aral, who has been studying social networking for 20 years. The three researchers found that on Twitter, from 2006 to 2017, false news stories were 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true ones. Why? Most likely because false news has greater novelty value compared to the truth, and provokes stronger reactions — especially disgust and surprise.

In this light, the essential tension surrounding social media companies is that their platforms gain audiences and revenue when posts provoke strong emotional responses, often based on dubious content.

“This is a well-designed, well-thought-out machine that has objectives it maximizes,” Aral says. “The business models that run the social-media industrial complex have a lot to do with the outcomes we’re seeing — it’s an attention economy, and businesses want you engaged. How do they get engagement? Well, they give you little dopamine hits, and … get you riled up. That’s why I call it the hype machine. We know strong emotions get us engaged, so [that favors] anger and salacious content.”

From Russia to marketing

“The Hype Machine” explores both the political implications and business dimensions of social media in depth. Certainly social media is fertile terrain for misinformation campaigns. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia spread  false information to at least 126 million people on Facebook and another 20 million people on Insta­gram (which Facebook owns), and was responsible for 10 million tweets. About 44 percent of adult Americans visited a false news source in the final weeks of the campaign.

“I think we need to be a lot more vigilant than we are,” says Aral.

We do not know if Russia’s efforts altered the outcome of the 2016 election, Aral says, though they may have been fairly effective. Curiously, it is not clear if the same is true of most U.S. corporate engagement efforts.

As Aral examines, digital advertising on most big U.S. online platforms is often wildly ineffective, with academic studies showing that the “lift” generated by ad campaigns — the extent to which they affect consumer action — has been overstated by a factor of hundreds, in some cases. Simply counting clicks on ads is not enough. Instead, online engagement tends to be more effective among new consumers, and when it is targeted well; in that sense, there is a parallel between good marketing and guerilla social media campaigns.

“The two questions I get asked the most these days,” Aral says, “are, one, did Russia succeed in intervening in our democracy? And two, how do I measure the ROI [return on investment] from marketing investments? As I was writing this book, I realized the answer to those two questions is the same.”

Ideas for improvement

“The Hype Machine” has received praise from many commentators. Foster Provost, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, says it is a “masterful integration of science, business, law, and policy.” Duncan Watts, a university professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says the book is “essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got here and how we can get somewhere better.”

In that vein, “The Hype Machine” has several detailed suggestions for improving social media. Aral favors automated and user-generated labeling of false news, and limiting revenue-collection that is based on false content. He also calls for firms to help scholars better research the issue of election interference.

Aral believes federal privacy measures could be useful, if we learn from the benefits and missteps of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and a new California law that lets consumers stop some data-sharing and allows people to find out what information companies have stored about them. He does not endorse breaking up Facebook, and suggests instead that the social media economy needs structural reform. He calls for data portability and interoperability, so “consumers would own their identities and could freely switch from one network to another.” Aral believes that without such fundamental changes, new platforms will simply replace the old ones, propelled by the network effects that drive the social-media economy.

“I do not advocate any one silver bullet,” says Aral, who emphasizes that changes in four areas together — money, code, norms, and laws — can alter the trajectory of the social media industry.

But if things continue without change, Aral adds, Facebook and the other social media giants risk substantial civic backlash and user burnout.

“If you get me angry and riled up, I might click more in the short term, but I might also grow really tired and annoyed by how this is making my life miserable, and I might turn you off entirely,” Aral observes. “I mean, that’s why we have a Delete Facebook movement, that’s why we have a Stop Hate for Profit movement. People are pushing back against the short-term vision, and I think we need to embrace this longer-term vision of a healthier communications ecosystem.”

Changing the social media giants can seem like a tall order. Still, Aral says, these firms are not necessarily destined for domination.

“I don’t think this technology or any other technology has some deterministic endpoint,” Aral says. “I want to bring us back to a more practical reality, which is that technology is what we make it, and we are abdicating our responsibility to steer technology toward good and away from bad. That is the path I try to illuminate in this book.”

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Press mentions.

Prof. Sinan Aral’s new book, “The Hype Machine,” has been selected as one of the best books of the year about AI by Wired . Gilad Edelman notes that Aral’s book is “an engagingly written shortcut to expertise on what the likes of Facebook and Twitter are doing to our brains and our society.”

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Danny Crichton of TechCrunch about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the future of social media. Aral notes that he believes a starting point “for solving the social media crisis is creating competition in the social media economy.” 

New York Times

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with New York Times editorial board member Greg Bensinger about how social media platforms can reduce the spread of misinformation. “Human-in-the-loop moderation is the right solution,” says Aral. “It’s not a simple silver bullet, but it would give accountability where these companies have in the past blamed software.”

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Kara Miller of GBH’s Innovation Hub about his research examining the impact of social media on everything from business re-openings during the Covid-19 pandemic to politics.

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with NPR’s Michael Martin about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the benefits and downfalls posed by social media. “I've been researching social media for 20 years. I've seen its evolution and also the techno utopianism and dystopianism,” says Aral. “I thought it was appropriate to have a book that asks, 'what can we do to really fix the social media morass we find ourselves in?'”

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Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society

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In recent years, scholarship around media technologies has finally shed the assumption that they are separate from and powerfully determining of social life, to look at them rather as the product of and embedded in distinct social, cultural and political practices. To better examine them in this light, communication and media scholars have increasingly taken theoretical perspectives originating in science and technology studies (STS), while at the same time some STS scholars interested in information technologies have linked their research to media studies questions about their symbolic dimensions. In this volume, scholars from both fields come together to advance this view of media technologies as complex socio-material phenomena. The first four contributors address the relationship between materiality and mediation, highlighting the linkages between the symbolic and the artifactual by considering such topics as the lived realities of network infrastructure and the informational embodiment of networked knowledge. A second set of four contributors highlight media technologies as always in motion, held together through the minute, unobserved work of many. This includes examining how the meanings of media technologies came to be and the work involved to keep them alive. After each of the two sets of essays, comments by senior scholars respond to the essays and articulate overarching themes. The volume intends to initiate conversations about the state of current scholarship around media technologies, as well as identify directions for future research.

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The Significance and Impact of the Media in Contemporary Society

• First Online: 10 March 2018

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• Faith Gordon 3  

Part of the book series: Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies ((PSLS))

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This chapter explores the significance of the media and the impact it has on the meaning-making processes in contemporary society. It draws on key national and international academic literature and previous studies on the role and functions of the media. This includes the key theoretical debates on deviancy amplification, folk devils and moral panics. It assesses the media’s impact on criminal justice policies and on public opinion of, and support for authoritarian ideologies and policies. In particular, it will focus on exploring how the media can influence popular culture and the impact of media portrayals of crime on societal perceptions, responses and reactions directed towards social groups, in particular children and young people ‘in conflict with the law’.

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It has long been acknowledged that the media are difficult to capture and define (Craig 2004 : 3). As outlined in Chap. 1 , the terms ‘media’ or ‘mass media’ refer to the traditional definition of the media, as consisting of newspapers (the print media), radio (broadcast media) and news bulletins and programs (televised media). While choosing to focus on the contemporary media, this book acknowledges from the outset that there is an extensive body of work existing on the historical origins of the media; mass communication and its impact, and the role of technological development (see Downing 1980 ; Frost 2000 ; Curran 2002 ).

There has been much criticism of pluralist theories on the media, including the arguments that pluralism is an ideological justification for the media and that the basis of the theory is not grounded in evidence. Rather the pluralist model assumes that the content of the media is diverse, without presenting evidence to reinforce or prove this theory (see Blumler and Gurevitch 1995 ).

Rupert Murdoch’s ownership of a range of media outlets in the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) is a prime example of the concentration of power and the influence of owners on media content (see Golding and Murdock 1991 ; Horrie 2003 ; Cole 2005 ). Further to this, academics such as Barker ( 1999 : 46) argue that conglomeration has aided a general concentration of media ownership, with research such as Bagdikian’s ( 2004 ) stating that the US media were controlled by 50 corporations in the 1980s, and by 2003 this had been reduced to five controlling the majority of the 178,000 media outlets. Significantly as Tait ( 2012 : 518) observes, the ‘scale and intensity’ of the phone hacking scandal in 2011, saw the resignation of the chief executive of one of the UK’s most influential newspaper groups, the resignation of one of the UK’s most senior police officers, the arrest of Andy Coulson, who had acted as the then Prime Minister, David Cameron’s head of communications, the resignation of two senior executives from key companies in the Murdoch empire, as well as the collapse of the takeover deal in relation to BSkyB and the closure of the News of the World (see also Keeble and Mair 2012 ; McKnight 2012 ; Watson and Hickman 2012 ).

As Barrat ( 1994 : 61) notes, the majority of media organisations are influenced by ‘a variety of commercial influences’, including the need to be profitable and also obtaining revenue through ‘advertising’. Some media outlets are part of the public sector, such as the BBC and they have the requirement ‘to provide a public service’, by ‘informing, educating, and entertaining audiences’ (Barrat 1994 : 61).

Tait’s ( 2012 : 520) analysis of the phone hacking scandal asserts that it has ‘revealed some fundamental issues in British political communications, the political system and the practice and regulation of journalism’. His analysis also documents ‘a secret history’ between Murdoch and British politics (Tait 2012 : 520–523).

Semiology provides a suitable vehicle for studying the meanings behind media content (see O’Connor 1989 ; Hall 1997 ; Berger 1998 ; Barker 2000 ; Schirato and Yell 2000 ). In contemporary literature it is now referred to as semiotics and was first developed by the Swiss linguist, Saussure, who proposed that meaning was ‘produced through … language systems’ (Schirato and Yell 2000 : 19). He focused on the ‘linguistic sign’, which he divided into the ‘signifier’, ‘the signified’ and the ‘sign’ (Schirato and Yell 2000 : 19).

As the findings of a number of content analysis studies highlight, the media exaggerate the levels of crime, in particular violent crime in the UK (see Ditton and Duffy 1983 ; Schlesinger and Murdock 1991 ; Williams and Dickinson 1993 ; Callanan 2005 ; Greer 2005 ; Reiner 2007 ).

Dorfman and Schiraldi’s ( 2001 ) research found that 76 percent of the public said they formed their opinions about crime from the media, whereas 22 percent reported that their knowledge of crime was formed through their personal experiences.

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Gordon, F. (2018). The Significance and Impact of the Media in Contemporary Society. In: Children, Young People and the Press in a Transitioning Society. Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60682-2_2

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The Impact of Digital Technologies

Technologies can help make our world fairer, more peaceful, and more just. Digital advances can support and accelerate achievement of each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals – from ending extreme poverty to reducing maternal and infant mortality, promoting sustainable farming and decent work, and achieving universal literacy. But technologies can also threaten privacy, erode security and fuel inequality. They have implications for human rights and human agency. Like generations before, we – governments, businesses and individuals – have a choice to make in how we harness and manage new technologies.

A DIGITAL FUTURE FOR ALL?

Digital technologies have advanced more rapidly than any innovation in our history – reaching around 50 per cent of the developing world’s population in only two decades and transforming societies. By enhancing connectivity, financial inclusion, access to trade and public services, technology can be a great equaliser.

In the health sector, for instance, AI-enabled frontier technologies are helping to save lives, diagnose diseases and extend life expectancy. In education, virtual learning environments and distance learning have opened up programmes to students who would otherwise be excluded. Public services are also becoming more accessible and accountable through blockchain-powered systems, and less bureaucratically burdensome as a result of AI assistance.Big data can also support more responsive and accurate policies and programmes.

However, those yet to be connected remain cut off from the benefits of this new era and remain further behind. Many of the people left behind are women, the elderly, persons with disabilities or from ethnic or linguistic minorities, indigenous groups and residents of poor or remote areas. The pace of connectivity is slowing, even reversing, among some constituencies. For example, globally, the proportion of women using the internet is 12 per cent lower than that of men. While this gap narrowed in most regions between 2013 and 2017, it widened in the least developed countries from 30 per cent to 33 per cent.

The use of algorithms can replicate and even amplify human and systemic bias where they function on the basis of data which is not adequately diverse. Lack of diversity in the technology sector can mean that this challenge is not adequately addressed.

THE FUTURE OF WORK

Throughout history, technological revolutions have changed the labour force: creating new forms and patterns of work, making others obsolete, and leading to wider societal changes. This current wave of change is likely to have profound impacts. For example, the International Labour Organization estimates that the shift to a greener economy could create 24 million new jobs globally by 2030 through the adoption of sustainable practices in the energy sector, the use of electric vehicles and increasing energy efficiency in existing and future buildings.

Meanwhile, reports by groups such as McKinsey suggest that 800 million people could lose their jobs to automation by 2030 , while polls reveal that the majority of all employees worry that they do not have the necessary training or skills to get a well-paid job.

There is broad agreement that managing these trends will require changes in our approach to education, for instance, by placing more emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and maths; by teaching soft skills, and resilience; and by ensuring that people can re-skill and up-skill throughout their lifetimes. Unpaid work, for example childcare and elderly care in the home, will need to be better supported, especially as with the shifting age profile of global populations, the demands on these tasks are likely to increase.

THE FUTURE OF DATA

Today, digital technologies such as data pooling and AI are used to track and diagnose issues in agriculture, health, and the environment, or to perform daily tasks such as navigating traffic or paying a bill. They can be used to defend and exercise human rights – but they can also be used to violate them, for example, by monitoring our movements, purchases, conversations and behaviours. Governments and businesses increasingly have the tools to mine and exploit data for financial and other purposes.

However, personal data would become an asset to a person, if there were a formula for better regulation of personal data ownership. Data-powered technology has the potential to empower individuals, improve human welfare, and promote universal rights, depending on the type of protections put in place.

THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media connects almost half of the entire global population . It enables people to make their voices heard and to talk to people across the world in real time. However, it can also reinforce prejudices and sow discord, by giving hate speech and misinformation a platform, or by amplifying echo chambers.

In this way, social media algorithms can fuel the fragmentation of societies around the world. And yet they also have the potential to do the opposite.

THE FUTURE OF CYBERSPACE

How to manage these developments is the subject of much discussion – nationally and internationally – at a time when geopolitical tensions are on the rise. The UN Secretary-General has warned of a ‘great fracture’ between world powers, each with their own internet and AI strategy, as well as dominant currency, trade and financial rules and contradictory geopolitical and military views. Such a divide could establish a digital Berlin Wall. Increasingly, digital cooperation between states – and a universal cyberspace that reflects global standards for peace and security, human rights and sustainable development – is seen as crucial to ensuring a united world. A ‘global commitment for digital cooperation’ is a key recommendation by the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation .

FOR MORE INFORMATION

The Sustainable Development Goals

The Age of Digital Interdependence: Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation

ILO | Global Commission on the Future of Work

Secretary General’s Address to the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly

Secretary General’s Strategy on New Technology

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8.2 Media and Technology in Society

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Describe the evolution and current role of different media, like newspapers, television, and new media
• Describe the function of product advertising in media
• Demonstrate awareness of the social homogenization and social fragmentation that occur via modern society’s use of technology and media

Technology and the media are interwoven, and neither can be separated from contemporary society in most core and semi-peripheral nations. Media is a term that refers to all print, digital, and electronic means of communication. From the time the printing press was created (and even before), technology has influenced how and where information is shared. Today, it is impossible to discuss media and the ways societies communicate without addressing the fast-moving pace of technology change. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to share news of your baby’s birth or a job promotion, you phoned or wrote letters. You might tell a handful of people, but you probably wouldn’t call up several hundred, including your old high school chemistry teacher, to let them know. Now, you might join an online community of parents-to-be even before you announce your pregnancy via a staged Instagram picture. The circle of communication is wider than ever, and when we talk about how societies engage with technology, we must take media into account, and vice versa.

Technology creates media. The comic book you bought your daughter is a form of media, as is the movie you streamed for family night, the web site you used to order takeout, the billboard you passed on the way to pick up your food, and the newspaper you read while you were waiting for it. Without technology, media would not exist, but remember, technology is more than just the media we are exposed to.

Categorizing Technology

There is no one way of dividing technology into categories. Whereas once it might have been simple to classify innovations such as machine-based or drug-based or the like, the interconnected strands of technological development mean that advancement in one area might be replicated in dozens of others. For simplicity’s sake, we will look at how the U.S. Patent Office, which receives patent applications for nearly all major innovations worldwide, addresses patents. This regulatory body will patent three types of innovation. Utility patents are the first type. These are granted for the invention or discovery of any new and useful process, product, or machine, or for a significant improvement to existing technologies. The second type of patent is a design patent . Commonly conferred in architecture and industrial design, this means someone has invented a new and original design for a manufactured product. Plant patents , the final type, recognize the discovery of new plant types that can be asexually reproduced. While genetically modified food is the hot-button issue within this category, farmers have long been creating new hybrids and patenting them. A more modern example might be food giant Monsanto, which patents corn with built-in pesticide (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 2011).

Anderson and Tushman (1990) suggest an evolutionary model of technological change , in which a breakthrough in one form of technology leads to a number of variations. Once those are assessed, a prototype emerges, and then a period of slight adjustments to the technology, interrupted by a breakthrough. For example, in terms of portable data storage, the first mainstream device was a floppy disk–a square, plastic object larger than a playing card, which in its final iteration held 1.4 megabytes of data (or less than a single high-resolution photo). Until the early 2000s, these were common formats, and students and professionals would regularly carry several of them. Floppy disks were improved and upgraded, then replaced by higher-capacity Zip and Jaz disks, which were then replaced by flash drives. This is essentially a generational model for categorizing technology, in which first-generation technology is a relatively unsophisticated jumping-off point that leads to an improved second generation, and so on.

Another type of evolution involves disruptive technology (or disruptive innovation), which is a product, service, or process that has a major effect on the operation of an entire industry, and/or may create new industries or new markets. In the example above, a disruptive technology might be the advent of cloud-based storage platforms like Google Drive and iCloud, which have significantly reduced the need for physical portable storage. Disruptive technology can create and destroy entire industries, sometimes in a rapid manner rather than in an evolutionary one. In one of the most famous examples, the advent of digital photography rendered film-based cameras obsolete; the change came quickly, and many companies could not adjust. In a similar manner, ride-sharing services have had a massive impact on the taxi and limousine industry. Emerging technologies such as blockchain, additive manufacturing (3D printing), and augmented reality are likely to have similar impacts. For example, if companies decide that it is more efficient to 3D print many products or components close to their destinations instead of shipping them from distant manufacturing plants and warehouses, the entire shipping industry may be affected.

The sociological impact of disruptive technology can be sudden. Digital photography, for example, resulted in the rapid decline of companies like Kodak, which had been stalwarts of the American economy and a major employer. Layoffs devastated cities like Rochester, New York. The advent of online music purchasing and subscription services resulted in the closure of thousands of record stores, both small businesses and large chains like Tower Records. Beyond the economic impact, these stores were often parts of the fabric of communities, places for fans to gather to explore and share music. Automation has likewise changed manufacturing and mining, resulting in severe job loss and drastic alterations in regions such as the Great Lakes, where many towns went from being part of the Manufacturing Belt to being part of the Rust Belt.

Sociology in the Real World

Violence in media and video games: does it matter.

A glance through popular video game and movie titles geared toward children and teens shows the vast spectrum of violence that is displayed, condoned, and acted out.

As a way to guide parents in their programming choices, the motion picture industry put a rating system in place in the 1960s. But new media—video games in particular—proved to be uncharted territory. In 1994, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) set a ratings system for games that addressed issues of violence, sexuality, drug use, and the like. California took it a step further by making it illegal to sell video games to underage buyers. The case led to a heated debate about personal freedoms and child protection, and in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the California law, stating it violated freedom of speech (ProCon 2012).

Children’s play has often involved games of aggression—from cops and robbers to fake sword fights. Many articles report on the controversy surrounding the suggested link between violent video games and violent behavior. Is the link real? Psychologists Anderson and Bushman (2001) reviewed forty-plus years of research on the subject and, in 2003, determined that there are causal linkages between violent video game use and aggression. They found that children who had just played a violent video game demonstrated an immediate increase in hostile or aggressive thoughts, an increase in aggressive emotions, and physiological arousal that increased the chances of acting out aggressive behavior (Anderson 2003).

However, though the American Psychological Association and other researchers found an increase in aggressive tendencies based on video game play, several studies and conclusions indicated "scant evidence" that violent video games cause either physical violence or criminal behavior. Researchers have found correlations between those behaviors, essentially indicating that violent people may be more likely to play violent video games, but that still does not mean that video games cause violence.

Types of Media and Technology

Media and technology have evolved hand in hand, from early print to modern publications, from radio to television to film. New media emerge constantly, such as we see in the online world.

Early forms of print media, found in ancient Rome, were hand-copied onto boards and carried around to keep the citizenry informed. With the invention of the printing press, the way that people shared ideas changed, as information could be mass produced and stored. For the first time, there was a way to spread knowledge and information more efficiently; many credit this development as leading to the Renaissance and ultimately the Age of Enlightenment. This is not to say that newspapers of old were more trustworthy than the Weekly World News and National Enquirer are today. Sensationalism abounded, as did censorship that forbade any subjects that would incite the populace.

The invention of the telegraph, in the mid-1800s, changed print media almost as much as the printing press. Suddenly information could be transmitted in minutes. As the nineteenth century became the twentieth, U.S. publishers such as Hearst redefined the world of print media and wielded an enormous amount of power to socially construct national and world events. Of course, even as the media empires of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were growing, print media also allowed for the dissemination of countercultural or revolutionary materials. Internationally, Vladimir Lenin’s Iskra ( The Spark ) newspaper was published in 1900 and played a role in Russia’s growing communist movement (World Association of Newspapers 2004).

With the invention and widespread use of television in the mid-twentieth century, newspaper circulation steadily dropped off, and in the 21st century, circulation has dropped further as more people turn to internet news sites and other forms of new media to stay informed. According to the Pew Research Center, 2009 saw an unprecedented drop in newspaper circulation––down 10.6 percent from the year before (Pew 2010).

This shift away from newspapers as a source of information has profound effects on societies. When the news is given to a large diverse conglomerate of people, it must maintain some level of broad-based reporting and balance in order to appeal to a broad audience and keep them subscribing. As newspapers decline, news sources become more fractured, so each segment of the audience can choose specifically what it wants to hear and what it wants to avoid. Increasingly, newspapers are shifting online in an attempt to remain relevant. It is hard to tell what impact new media platforms will have on the way we receive and process information.

It is hard to tell what impact new media platforms will have on the way we receive and process information. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (2013) reported that audiences for all the major news magazines declined in 2012, though digital ad revenue increased. The same report suggested that, while newspaper circulation is holding steady at around $10 billion after years of decline, it is digital pay plans that allow newspapers to keep their heads above water, and the digital ad revenue that is increasing for news magazines is not enough to compensate for print revenue loss in newspapers.

A 2014 report suggested that U.S. adults read a median of five books per year in 2013, which is about average. But are they reading traditional print or e-books? About 69 percent of people said they had read at least one printed book in the past year, versus 28 percent who said they’d read an e-book (DeSilver 2014). Is print more effective at conveying information? In recent study, Mangen, Walgermo, and Bronnick (2013) found that students who read on paper performed slightly better than those who read an e-book on an open-book reading comprehension exam of multiple-choice and short-answer questions. While a meta-analysis of research by Andrews (1992) seemed to confirm that people read more slowly and comprehend less when reading from screens, a meta-analysis of more recent research on this topic does not show anything definite (Noyes and Garland 2008).

Television and Radio

Radio programming obviously preceded television, but both shaped people’s lives in much the same way. In both cases, information (and entertainment) could be enjoyed at home, with a kind of immediacy and community that newspapers could not offer. For instance, many people in the United States might remember when they saw on television or heard on the radio that the Twin Towers in New York City had been attacked in 2001. Even though people were in their own homes, media allowed them to share these moments in real time. This same kind of separate-but-communal approach occurred with entertainment too. School-aged children and office workers gathered to discuss the previous night’s installment of a serial television or radio show.

Right up through the 1970s, U.S. television was dominated by three major networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) that competed for ratings and advertising dollars. The networks also exerted a lot of control over what people watched. Public television, in contrast, offered an educational nonprofit alternative to the sensationalization of news spurred by the network competition for viewers and advertising dollars. Those sources—PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), the BBC (British Broadcasting Company), and CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company)—garnered a worldwide reputation for high-quality programming and a global perspective. Al Jazeera, the Arabic independent news station, has joined this group as a similar media force that broadcasts to people worldwide.

The impact of television on U.S. society is hard to overstate. By the late 1990s, 98 percent of U.S. homes had at least one television set, and the average person watched between two and a half and five hours of television daily. All this television has a powerful socializing effect, providing reference groups while reinforcing social norms, values, and beliefs.

The film industry took off in the 1930s, when color and sound were first integrated into feature films. Like television, early films were unifying for society: as people gathered in theaters to watch new releases, they would laugh, cry, and be scared together. Movies also act as time capsules or cultural touchstones for society. From Westerns starring the tough-talking Clint Eastwood to the biopic of Facebook founder and Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg, movies illustrate society’s dreams, fears, and experiences. While many consider Hollywood the epicenter of moviemaking, India’s Bollywood actually produces more films per year, speaking to the cultural aspirations and norms of Indian society. The film industry, like other media formats, has gone through substantial change as a result of streaming services, online privacy, and the new competition for people's entertainment dollars. Because the mainstream movie industry has been so reliant on ticket sales at live theaters, the COVID-19 pandemic affected it more dramatically than most other media categories. Highly anticipated movies slated for 2020 and 2021 releases were delayed or shifted to streaming distribution, reducing revenue. And some companies made lasting decisions regarding their future offerings.

New Media and Online Environments

New media encompasses all interactive forms of information exchange. These include social networking sites, blogs, podcasts, wikis, and virtual worlds. Many are not "new" in the sense that they were developed in the past few years (some may be older than you), but they are newer than the media mentioned above, and they rely on types of technologies that were not available until about thirty years ago. Many are ways disruptive to traditional media or to companies that rely on those other formats. Clearly, the list of new media grows almost daily, and you might feel we are missing some. In fact, the immediacy of new media coupled with the lack of oversight means we must be more careful than ever to ensure that we are making good decisions about the accuracy, ethics, and cultural responsiveness of these formats.

Planned Obsolescence: Technology That’s Built to Crash

Chances are your mobile phone company, as well as the makers of your laptop and your household appliances, are all counting on their products to fail. Not too quickly, of course, or consumers wouldn't stand for it—but frequently enough that you might find that it costs far more to fix a device than to replace it with a newer model. Or you find the phone company e-mails you saying that you’re eligible for a free new phone, because yours is a whopping two years old. And appliance repair people say that while they might be fixing some machines that are twenty years old, they generally aren’t fixing those that are seven years old; newer models are built to be thrown out. This strategy is called planned obsolescence , and it is the business practice of planning for a product to be obsolete or unusable from the time it is created.

To some extent, planned obsolescence is a natural extension of new and emerging technologies. After all, who is going to cling to an enormous and slow desktop computer from 2000 when a few hundred dollars can buy one that is significantly faster and better? But the practice is not always so benign. The classic example of planned obsolescence is the nylon stocking. Women’s stockings—once an everyday staple of women’s lives––get “runs” or “ladders” after only a few wearings. This requires the stockings to be discarded and new ones purchased. Not surprisingly, the garment industry did not invest heavily in finding a rip-proof fabric; it was in manufacturers' best interest that their product be regularly replaced.

Those who use Microsoft Windows might feel that like the women who purchased endless pairs of stockings, they are victims of planned obsolescence. Every time Windows releases a new operating system, there are typically not many innovations in it that consumers feel they must have. However, the software programs are upwardly compatible only. This means that while the new versions can read older files, the old version cannot read the newer ones. In short order, those who have not upgraded right away find themselves unable to open files sent by colleagues or friends, and they usually wind up upgrading as well.

Planned obsolescence is not always done ethically, and some companies can dictate the obsolescence after the user makes a purchase. Apple users took to social media to confirm that their older iPhones suddenly began losing power or were slowing down considerably. Many users bought new phones at high prices, and later learned that the slow downs were intended by the phone maker. Customers filed dozens of class action lawsuits, which are suits where a very large group of people can band together. Apple was found to have intentionally and improperly altered its phones through a software update in order to hide battery problems. While it never admitted guilt, Apple's $500 million settlement paid benefits to iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 users who had been affected, and a later $113 agreement with state attorneys general included provisions to behave more ethically and transparently (CNBC 2020).

Product Advertising and the Attention Economy

Companies use advertising to sell to us, but the way they reach us is changing. Naomi Klein identified the destructive impact of corporate branding her 1999 text, No Logo , an antiglobalization treatise that focused on sweatshops, corporate power, and anticonsumerist social movements. In the post-millennial society, synergistic advertising practices ensure you are receiving the same message from a variety of sources and on a variety of platforms. For example, you may see billboards for Miller beer on your way to a stadium, sit down to watch a game preceded by a Miller commercial on the big screen, and watch a halftime ad in which people are shown holding up the trademark bottles. Chances are you can guess which brand of beer is for sale at the concession stand.

Advertising has changed, as technology and media have allowed consumers to bypass traditional advertising venues. From the invention of the remote control, which allows us to skip television advertising without leaving our seats, to recording devices that let us watch programs but skip the ads, conventional television advertising is on the wane. And print media is no different. Advertising revenue in newspapers and on television has fallen significantly, which shows that companies need new ways of getting their messages to consumers.

Brand ambassadorships can also be powerful tools for advertisers. For example, companies hire college students to be their on-campus representatives, and they may target for students engaged in high-profile activities like sports, fraternities, and music. (This practice is slightly different from sponsorships, and note that some students, particularly athletes, need to follow strict guidelines about accepting money or products.) The marketing team is betting that if we buy perfume because Beyoncé tells us to, we’ll also choose our workout gear, clothing, or make-up brand if another student encourages that choice. Tens of thousands of brand ambassadors or brand evangelists work on college campuses, and such marketing approaches are seen as highly effective investments for companies. The numbers make it clear: Ambassador-referred customers provide sixteen percent higher value to companies than other customers, and over ninety percent of people indicate that people trust referrals from people they know (On-Campus Advertising, 2017).

Social media has made such influencer and ambassador marketing a near constant. Some formal ambassadors are sponsored by companies to show or use their products. In some cases, compensation arrives only in the form of the free products and whatever monetization the ambassador receives from the site, such as YouTube. Influencers are usually less formally engaged with companies than are ambassadors, relying mostly on site revenue to reward their efforts. Some influencers may overstate their popularity in order to get free products or services. For example, luxury hotels report that they are barraged by influencers (some with very few followers, and therefore questionable influence) who expect free stays in exchange for creating posts promoting the location (Locker 2019).

One ethical and perhaps relationship-oriented question is whether paid ambassadors should be required to disclose their relationship with a company, and how that works in online versus face-to-face interactions. In this case, online presence may be more "truthful" than in-person relationships. A video can formally include sponsorship information, and some ambassadors list partners or sponsors on their profiles. But in day-to-day, in-person conversations, it might be awkward for a classmate or colleague to mention that they are wearing a particular brand or using gear based on a financial relationship. In other words, the person sitting next to you with the great bag may be paid to carry it, and you may never know.

Homogenization and Fragmentation

Despite the variety of media at hand, the mainstream news and entertainment you enjoy are increasingly homogenized. Research by McManus (1995) suggests that different news outlets all tell the same stories, using the same sources, resulting in the same message, presented with only slight variations. So whether you are reading the New York Times or the CNN’s web site, the coverage of national events like a major court case or political issue will likely be the same.

Simultaneously with this homogenization among the major news outlets, the opposite process is occurring in the newer media streams. With so many choices, people increasingly customize their news experience, minimizing their opportunity to encounter information that does not jive with their worldview (Prior 2005). For instance, those who are staunchly Republican can avoid centrist or liberal-leaning cable news shows and web sites that would show Democrats in a favorable light. They know to seek out Fox News over MSNBC, just as Democrats know to do the opposite. Further, people who want to avoid politics completely can choose to visit web sites that deal only with entertainment or that will keep them up to date on sports scores. They have an easy way to avoid information they do not wish to hear. Americans seem to view this phenomenon with great concern, indicating that the impact of customized or personalized news delivers worse news. Yet, they still engage with the platforms that deliver news in that manner.

The fragmentation of the news has led to an increased amount of digital tribalism. Tribalism in this sense is the state or tendency to gather and reinforce ideas belonging to a group, and to do so out of a sense of strong loyalty. Digital tribalism, then, is the tendency to do so online, and also to forge new tribes purely based on online personas or ideologies. Instead of basing these groups on the classic bonds of ethnic, religious, or geographic ideologies, they are based on politics, emotions, lifestyles or lifestyle goals, or even brands (Taute & Sierra 2014). Digital tribes can lead people to a greater sense of belonging, and can also be heavily exploited for commercial or power-attaining interests.

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The Impact Of Digital Technology Media Essay

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Social media's growing impact on our lives

Media psychology researchers are beginning to tease apart the ways in which time spent on social media is, and is not, impacting our day-to-day lives.

Social media use has skyrocketed over the past decade and a half. Whereas only five percent of adults in the United States reported using a social media platform in 2005, that number is now around 70 percent .

Growth in the number of people who use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat and other social media platforms — and the time spent on them—has garnered interest and concern among policymakers, teachers, parents, and clinicians about social media's impacts on our lives and psychological well-being.

While the research is still in its early years — Facebook itself only celebrated its 15 th birthday this year — media psychology researchers are beginning to tease apart the ways in which time spent on these platforms is, and is not, impacting our day-to-day lives.

Social media and relationships

One particularly pernicious concern is whether time spent on social media sites is eating away at face-to-face time, a phenomenon known as social displacement .

Fears about social displacement are longstanding, as old as the telephone and probably older. “This issue of displacement has gone on for more than 100 years,” says Jeffrey Hall, PhD, director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at the University of Kansas. “No matter what the technology is,” says Hall, there is always a “cultural belief that it's replacing face-to-face time with our close friends and family.”

Hall's research interrogates that cultural belief. In one study , participants kept a daily log of time spent doing 19 different activities during weeks when they were and were not asked to abstain from using social media. In the weeks when people abstained from social media, they spent more time browsing the internet, working, cleaning, and doing household chores. However, during these same abstention periods, there was no difference in people's time spent socializing with their strongest social ties.

The upshot? “I tend to believe, given my own work and then reading the work of others, that there's very little evidence that social media directly displaces meaningful interaction with close relational partners,” says Hall. One possible reason for this is because we tend to interact with our close loved ones through several different modalities—such as texts, emails, phone calls, and in-person time.

What about teens?

When it comes to teens, a recent study by Jean Twenge , PhD, professor of psychology at San Diego State University, and colleagues found that, as a cohort, high school seniors heading to college in 2016 spent an “ hour less a day engaging in in-person social interaction” — such as going to parties, movies, or riding in cars together — compared with high school seniors in the late 1980s. As a group, this decline was associated with increased digital media use. However, at the individual level, more social media use was positively associated with more in-person social interaction. The study also found that adolescents who spent the most time on social media and the least time in face-to-face social interactions reported the most loneliness.

While Twenge and colleagues posit that overall face-to-face interactions among teens may be down due to increased time spent on digital media, Hall says there's a possibility that the relationship goes the other way.

Hall cites the work of danah boyd, PhD, principal researcher at Microsoft Research  and the founder of Data & Society . “She [boyd] says that it's not the case that teens are displacing their social face-to-face time through social media. Instead, she argues we got the causality reversed,” says Hall. “We are increasingly restricting teens' ability to spend time with their peers . . . and they're turning to social media to augment it.”

According to Hall, both phenomena could be happening in tandem — restrictive parenting could drive social media use and social media use could reduce the time teens spend together in person — but focusing on the latter places the culpability more on teens while ignoring the societal forces that are also at play.

The evidence is clear about one thing: Social media is popular among teens. A 2018 Common Sense Media report found that 81 percent of teens use social media, and more than a third report using social media sites multiple times an hour. These statistics have risen dramatically over the past six years, likely driven by increased access to mobile devices. Rising along with these stats is a growing interest in the impact that social media is having on teen cognitive development and psychological well-being.

“What we have found, in general, is that social media presents both risks and opportunities for adolescents,” says Kaveri Subrahmanyam, PhD, a developmental psychologist, professor at Cal State LA, and associate director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles .

Risks of expanding social networks

Social media benefits teens by expanding their social networks and keeping them in touch with their peers and far-away friends and family. It is also a creativity outlet. In the Common Sense Media report, more than a quarter of teens said that “social media is ‘extremely' or ‘very' important for them for expressing themselves creatively.”

But there are also risks. The Common Sense Media survey found that 13 percent of teens reported being cyberbullied at least once. And social media can be a conduit for accessing inappropriate content like violent images or pornography. Nearly two-thirds of teens who use social media said they “'often' or ‘sometimes' come across racist, sexist, homophobic, or religious-based hate content in social media.”

With all of these benefits and risks, how is social media affecting cognitive development? “What we have found at the Children's Digital Media Center is that a lot of digital communication use and, in particular, social media use seems to be connected to offline developmental concerns,” says Subrahmanyam. “If you look at the adolescent developmental literature, the core issues facing youth are sexuality, identity, and intimacy,” says Subrahmanyam.

Her research suggests that different types of digital communication may involve different developmental issues. For example, she has found that teens frequently talked about sex in chat rooms , whereas their use of blogs and social media appears to be more concerned with self-presentation and identity construction.

In particular, exploring one's identity appears to be a crucial use of visually focused social media sites for adolescents. “Whether it's Facebook, whether it's Instagram, there's a lot of strategic self presentation, and it does seem to be in the service of identity,” says Subrahmanyam. “I think where it gets gray is that we don't know if this is necessarily beneficial or if it harms.”

Remaining questions

“It's important to develop a coherent identity,” she says. “But within the context of social media — when it's not clear that people are necessarily engaging in real self presentation and there's a lot of ideal-self or false-self presentation — is that good?”

There are also more questions than answers when it comes to how social media affects the development of intimate relationships during adolescence. Does having a wide network of contacts — as is common in social media—lead to more superficial interactions and hinder intimacy? Or, perhaps more important, “Is the support that you get online as effective as the support that you get offline?” ponders Subrahmanyam. “We don't know that necessarily.”

Based on her own research comparing text messages and face-to-face interactions, she says: “My hypothesis is that maybe digital interactions may be a little more ephemeral, they're a little more fleeting, and you feel good, but that the feeling is lost quickly versus face-to-face interaction.”

However, she notes that today's teens — being tech natives — may get less hung up on the online/offline dichotomy. “ We tend to think about online and offline as disconnected, but we have to recognize that for youth . . . there's so much more fluidity and connectedness between the real and the physical and the offline and the online,” she says.

In fact, growing up with digital technology may be changing teen brain development in ways we don't yet know — and these changes may, in turn, change how teens relate to technology. “Because the exposure to technology is happening so early, we have to be mindful of the possibility that perhaps there are changes happening at a neural level with early exposure,” says Subrahmanyam. “How youths interact with technology could just be qualitatively different from how we do it.”

In part two of this article , we will look at how social media affects psychological well-being and ways of using social media that are likely to amplify its benefits and decrease its harms.

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What’s Next? How Digital Media Shapes Our Society

By John McDonald

September 1, 2021

A summary of Professor Leah A. Lievrouw’s most recent book, which explores the rapidly changing role communication plays at the center of human experience and endeavor.

UCLA Information Studies Professor Leah A. Lievrouw’s first academic job was at Rutgers University in the late 1980s. One day, a colleague, a media effects researcher, was talking with her in her office and said, “Well, you know this new media stuff, it’s kind of interesting, but really it’s just a fad, isn’t it?”

That “new media stuff” has been the centerpiece of Lievrouw’s research ever since and today is central to many of the economic, social, political and policy challenges that confront the globe.

“My interest is in new technologies, communication information technologies and social change, and how change happens for good and ill. It’s really a sociological take. I’m more interested in what’s going on at the whole society or whole community level,” Lievrouw said. Professor Lievrouw joined the UCLA Department of Information Studies in 1995 and in 2005 co-edited “The Handbook of New Media” (Sage Publications), with Sonia Livingston of the London School of Economics. The book became a central resource for study of the field and is still used in classrooms and cited in research.

“It was really a big comprehensive survey with leading people in the field who were working on this research, right across various sub-fields and different topics,” Lievrouw said. “For a long time and in some circles still it is kind of the definitive capture of what the field was like and what the issues were at the moment.”

With changes in technology and communication rapidly occurring with ever larger impact, Lievrouw and her colleagues began talking about not just an update, but a whole new book.

Lievrouw decided to move forward and eventually linked up with Brian Loader, a professor at the University of York in the United Kingdom and editor-in-chief of the journal Information, Communication and Society, to serve as co-editor.

The book draws together the work of scholars from across the globe to examine the forces that shape our digital social lives and further our understanding of the sociocultural impact of digital media.

Routledge Handbook of Digital Media and Communication

“As of this writing, as the world undergoes breakdowns in social, institutional, and technological systems across every domain of human affairs in the wake of a biological and public health crisis of unprecedented scale and scope, such a framework for understanding communicative action, technology, and social forms has never been so apt or so urgently needed.” – Routledge Publishing

Mirroring the approach of the earlier “Handbook of Social Media,” the book is organized into a three-part framework exploring the artifacts or devices, the practices and institutional arrangements that are central to digital media, and draws the connections across the three elements.

The book explores topics such as the power of algorithms, digital currency, gaming culture, surveillance, social networking, and connective mobilization. As described in the introduction by Routledge, the “Handbook delivers a comprehensive, authoritative overview of the state of new media scholarship and its most important future directions that will shape and animate current debates.”

“I really like that again this seems to be a pretty definitive state-of-the-art kind of look at what is going on with these technologies,” Lievrouw said. “This has perhaps a more critical edge than we had 20 years ago, because we have begun to see the downsides of digital media as well as all the upsides that everyone had such hopes about. What makes me really happy is that this volume kind of pulls back a bit and takes a bigger stock of the issues and challenges. We have a few chapters that I think are just really definitive, written by some of the very best people on the planet. We were very lucky to recruit such a terrific lineup of people.”

Professor Lievrouw refers to a series of essays on critical topics in the book by leading experts such as Paul Dourish exploring Ubiquity or the everywhereness of digital media; Veronica Barrasi, writing about youth, algorithms, and political data; and Julie Cohen, writing about the nature of property in a world driven by social media and more.

“In her chapter, Cohen asks, what’s the nature of property? Every aspect of our behavior or of our beliefs is constantly kind of being pulled away from us, appropriated and owned by outfits like Google and like Facebook. They now consider this their proprietary information, and we’ve not had that before in the world really, certainly not on this scale. I think that’s worth exploring,” Lievrouw said.

Timing is everything, and the new book is emerging at a time of particular relevance and questioning about digital media.

“The book has happened to come out at a moment when there’s so much skepticism, and so much worry,” Professor Lievrouw said. “What’s interesting is that the worry is in the scholarly community too and has been for a little while.

“We’re in that moment where we are having to look, not only at the most egregious and outrageous behaviors, opinions, and disinformation, and all the kinds of things that have come out from under the rocks. And the system itself is rather mature at this point, so the question becomes, ‘Where is it going to go? What do we do next? Is it just more incursion, more data, more surveillance, more circulation of stuff?’ And we are doing it without editing, without gatekeepers. And we should never forget about the impact of places like Facebook, Google, Amazon. “It has changed social structure.

It has changed cultural practices. It has changed our perception of the world fundamentally. And I think it’s not just the technology that did this, it’s the way we built it.

“I think we are entering a period of reckoning about these technologies, the whole complex of people involved in the building and operation of platforms and different kinds of applications, especially data gathering. Data has come to the center of the economics of this thing in a way that it hasn’t before. This is a good moment to reassess what works, what has been emancipatory, what has been enabling for people, how the diffusion of these technologies, and the adaptation of their use, is impacting different places and different cultures all over the world.

“Every thoughtful researcher in this area I know is turning this over in their head, saying, ‘How did we get to this point? What happened here?’ I think what this book can help us understand not only where we are right now, but also to think about what could be next, and what can we do to repair this. Right now, I don’t think anybody has a solid answer for that. If they do, it’s an answer they don’t like.”

Excerpt from Introduction

No longer new, digital media and communication technologies—and their associated infrastructures, practices, and cultural forms—have become woven into the very social fabric of contemporary human life. Despite the cautiously optimistic accounts of the potential of the Internet to foster stronger democratic governance, enable connective forms of mobilization, stimulate social capital (community, social, or crisis informatics), restructure education and learning, support remote health care, or facilitate networked flexible organization, the actual development of digital media and communication has been far more problematic. Indeed, recent commentary has been more pessimistic about the disruptive impact of digital media and communication upon our everyday lives. The promise of personal emancipation and free access to unlimited digital resources has, some argue, led us to sleepwalk into a world of unremitting surveillance, gross disparities in wealth, precarious employment opportunities, a deepening crisis in democracy, and an opaque global network of financial channels and transnational corporations with unaccountable monopoly power.

A critical appraisal of the current state of play of the digital world is thus timely, indeed overdue, and required if we are to examine these assertions and concerns clearly. There is no preordained technological pathway that digital media must follow or are following. A measure of these changes is the inadequacy of many familiar concepts— such as commons, public sphere, social capital, class, and others—to capture contemporary power relations or to explain transitions from “mass society” to networked sociality—or from mass to personalized consumption. Even the strategies of resistance to these transitions draw upon traditional appeals to unionization, democratic accountability, mass mobilization, state regulation, and the like, all part of the legacy of earlier capitalist and political forms.

How then to examine the current digitalscape? Internet-based and data-driven systems, applications, platforms, and affordances now play a pivotal role in every domain of social life. Under the rubric of new media research, computer-mediated communication, social media or Internet studies, media sociology, or media anthropology, research and scholarship in the area have moved from the fringe to the theoretical and empirical center of many disciplines, spawning a whole generation of new journals and publishers’ lists. Within communication research and scholarship itself, digital technologies and their consequences have become central topics in every area of the discipline—indeed, they have helped blur some of the most enduring boundaries dividing many of the field’s traditional specializations. Meanwhile, the ubiquity, adaptability, responsiveness, and networked structure of online communication, the advantages of which—participation, convenience, engagement, connectedness, community—were often celebrated in earlier studies, have also introduced troubling new risks, including pervasive surveillance, monopolization, vigilantism, cyberwar, worker displacement, intolerance, disinformation, and social separatism.

Technology infrastructure has several defining features that make it a distinctive object of study. Infrastructures are embedded; transparent (support tasks invisibly); have reach or scope beyond a single context; learned as part of membership in a social or cultural group; are linked to existing practices and routines; embody standards; are built on an existing, installed base; and, perhaps most critically, ordinarily become “visible” or apparent to users only when they break down: when “the server is down, the bridge washes out, there is a power blackout.” As of this writing, as the world undergoes breakdowns in social, institutional, and technological systems across every domain of human affairs in the wake of a biological and public health crisis of unprecedented scale and scope, such a framework for understanding communicative action, technology, and social forms has never been so apt or so urgently needed.

Two cross-cutting themes had come to characterize the quality and processes of mediated communication over the prior two decades. The first is a broad shift from the mass and toward the network as the defining structure and dominant logic of communication technologies, systems, relations, and practices; the second is the growing enclosure of those technologies, relations, and practices by private ownership and state security interests. These two features of digital media and communication have joined to create socio-technical conditions for communication today that would have been unrecognizable even to early new media scholars of the 1970s and 1980s, to say nothing of the communication researchers before them specializing in classical media effects research, political economy of media, interpersonal and group process, political communication, global/comparative communication research, or organizational communication, for example.

This collection of essays reveals an extraordinarily faceted, nuanced picture of communication and communication studies, today. For example, the opening part, “Artifacts,” richly portrays the infrastructural qualities of digital media tools and systems. Stephen C. Slota, Aubrey Slaughter, and Geoffrey C. Bowker’s piece on “occult” infrastructures of communication expands and elaborates on the infrastructure studies perspective. Paul Dourish provides an incisive discussion on the nature and meaning of ubiquity for designers and users of digital systems. Essays on big data and algorithms (Taina Bucher), mobile devices and communicative gestures (Lee Humphreys and Larissa Hjorth), digital embodiment and financial infrastructures (Kaitlyn Wauthier and Radhika Gajjala), interfaces and affordances (Matt Ratto, Curtis McCord, Dawn Walker, and Gabby Resch), hacking (Finn Brunton), and digital records and memory (David Beer) demonstrate how computation and data generation/capture have transfigured both the material features and the human experience of engagement with media technologies and systems. The second part, “Practices,” shifts focus from devices, tools, and systems to the communicative practices of the people who use them. Digital media and communication today have fostered what some writers have called datafication—capturing and rendering all aspects of communicative action, expression, and meaning into quantified data that are often traded in markets and used to make countless decisions about, and to intercede in, people’s experiences. Systems that allow people to make and share meaning are also configured by private-sector firms and state security actors to capture and enclose human communication and information.

This dynamic is played out in routine monitoring and surveillance (an essay by Mark Andrejevic), in the construction and practice of personal identity (Mary Chayko), in family routines and relationships (Nancy Jennings), in political participation (Brian Loader and Veronica Barassi), in our closest relationships and sociality (Irina Shklovski), in education and new literacies (Antero Garcia), in the increasing precarity of “information work” (Leah Lievrouw and Brittany Paris), and in what Walter Lippmann famously called the “picture of reality” portrayed in the news (Stuart Allan, Chris Peters, and Holly Steel). Many suggest that the erosion of boundaries between public and private, true and false, and ourselves and others is increasingly taken for granted, with mediated communication as likely to create a destabilizing, chronic sense of disruption and displacement as it is to promote deliberation, cohesion, or solidarities.

The broader social, organizational, and institutional arrangements that shape and regulate the tools and the practices of digital communication and information, and which themselves are continuously reformed, are explored in the third part. Nick Couldry starts with an overview of mediatization, the growing centrality of media in what he calls the “institutionalization of the social” and the establishment of social order, at every level from microscale interaction to the jockeying among nation-states. There are essays that present evidence of the instability, uncertainty, and delegitimation associated with digital media; reflections on globalization; a survey of governance and regulation; a revisitation of political economy; and the trenchant reconsideration of the notion of property. Elena Pavan and Donatella della Porta examine the role of digital media in social movements while Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman argue that digital technologies may, in fact, help reinforce people’s senses of community and belonging both online and offline. Shiv Ganesh and Cynthia Stohl show that while much past research was focused on the “fluidity” or formlessness of organization afforded by “digital ubiquity,” in fact contemporary organizing is a more subtle process comprising “opposing tendencies and human activities, of both form and formlessness.”

Taken together, the contributions present a complex, interwoven technical, social/cultural, and institutional fabric of society, which nonetheless seems to be showing signs of wear, or perhaps even breakdown in response to systemic environmental and institutional crises. As digital media and communication technologies have become routine, even banal—convenience, immediacy, connectedness—they are increasingly accompanied by a growing recognition of their negative externalities—monopoly and suppressed competition, ethical and leadership failures, and technological lock-in instead of genuine, path breaking innovation. The promise and possibility of new media and digitally mediated communication are increasingly tempered with sober assessments of risk, conflict, and exploitation.

This scenario may seem pessimistic, but perhaps one way to view the current state of digital media and communication studies is that it has matured, or reached a moment of consolidation, in which the visionary enthusiasms and forecasts of earlier decades have grown into a more developed or skeptical perspective. Digital media platforms and systems have diffused across the globe into cultural, political, and economic contexts and among diverse populations that often challenge the assumptions and expectations that were built into the early networks. The systems themselves, and their ownership and operations, have stabilized and become routinized, much as utilities and earlier media systems have done before, so they are more likely to resist root-and-branch change. They are as likely to reinforce and sustain patterns of knowledge and power as they are to “disrupt” them.

In another decade we might expect to find that the devices, practices, and institutional arrangements will have become even more integrated into common activities, places, and experiences, and culture will be unremarkable, embedded, woven into cultural practices, standardized, and invisible or transparent, just as satellite transmissions and undersea cables, or content streaming and social media platforms, are to us today. These socio-technical qualities will pose new kinds of challenges for communication researchers and scholars, but they also herald possibilities for a fuller, deeper understanding of the role communication plays at the center of human experience and endeavor.

This article is part of the UCLA Ed&IS Magazine Summer 2021 Issue. To read the full issue click here .

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Argumentative Essay on Technology

Aji Sutarmaji

Technology influences every aspect of our lives. From the way we communicate to the way we work, the impact of technology is undeniable. Writing an argumentative essay about technology offers an opportunity to explore and dissect this multifaceted subject.

In this comprehensive guide, we will take you through the steps of creating an impactful argumentative essay on technology.

Let’s try to grasp the fundamentals of this type of essay.

What is an Argumentative Essay?

An argumentative essay is a genre of writing that requires you to take a stance on a particular topic, provide evidence to support your position, and refute counterarguments. It aims to persuade the reader to adopt your point of view.

Choosing a Topic | Argumentative Essay on Technology

Selecting the right topic is the first step in creating a compelling argumentative essay. When it comes to technology, there are numerous subjects to explore:

• Privacy Concerns in the Digital Age: Discuss the implications of surveillance and data collection in the modern world.
• Impact of Social Media: Analyze the effects of social media on individuals and society.
• Artificial Intelligence and Automation: Delve into the benefits and drawbacks of AI and automation in the workplace.
• Digital Divide: Explore the disparities in technology access and its consequences.
• Cybersecurity: Investigate the importance of safeguarding data and personal information in the digital realm.

The Essay Structure | Argumentative Essay on Technology

To present your arguments effectively, you must follow a well-structured essay format. Here’s a classic structure that works for most argumentative essays:

1. Introduction

The introduction is your opportunity to grab the reader’s attention. Start with a compelling hook related to technology and state the issue you’ll be discussing. Provide some context and background information, and conclude with a clear thesis statement that outlines your stance on the topic.

The body of your essay is where you present your arguments and evidence. Divide this section into several paragraphs, each focusing on a single point. Remember to use topic sentences to guide the reader through your essay. Let’s take the example of discussing the impact of social media on society:

• Paragraph 1: Social Media and Communication Discuss how social media has revolutionized communication and connection among people.
• Paragraph 2: The Influence on Mental Health Explore the potential negative effects of excessive social media use on mental well-being.
• Paragraph 3: Fake News and Misinformation Address the issue of misinformation and its impact on society through social media.
• Paragraph 4: Privacy Concerns Discuss the privacy implications of sharing personal information on social media platforms.
• Paragraph 5: The Power of Social Media in Activism Highlight the positive aspects, such as its role in social and political movements.

3. Counterarguments and Refutation

To strengthen your essay, acknowledge opposing viewpoints and provide a counterargument. After presenting the counterargument, offer a compelling refutation to demonstrate the weaknesses in the opposing view.

4. Conclusion

Summarize your main points, restate your thesis, and leave the reader with a compelling closing thought. Encourage them to think critically about the topic.

Evidence and Support | Argumentative Essay on Technology

To make your argument persuasive, you need strong evidence and support for each point you make. Here are some ways to gather evidence:

• Statistics: Utilize relevant statistics to back up your claims. For instance, if you’re discussing the impact of social media, you can cite statistics on the number of people using social platforms or the time spent on them.
• Expert Opinions: Quote experts and scholars in the field to lend credibility to your arguments. Their insights can provide valuable support for your claims.
• Anecdotes and Examples: Share real-life stories or examples that illustrate the points you’re making. Personal anecdotes can make your essay more relatable to the reader.
• Research Studies: Incorporate findings from reputable research studies. These studies can offer in-depth analysis and provide a solid foundation for your arguments.

Addressing Counterarguments

To create a well-rounded argument, it’s crucial to address counterarguments. Anticipate what the opposition might say and offer a counterpoint. For example, when discussing social media’s positive impact on activism, acknowledge that some critics argue it can be a source of division. Then, provide evidence to refute this perspective.

Revise and Edit

Writing is a process, and revision is an integral part of it. After completing your initial draft, take the time to revise and edit your essay. Look for clarity and coherence, and ensure that your arguments flow logically. Pay attention to grammar and style to present a polished final product.

To Remember

Writing an argumentative essay about technology needs knowledge of essay structure and deep understanding of the topic. By following the structure, providing strong evidence, addressing counterarguments, and revising diligently, you can craft a compelling essay that engages readers and leaves a lasting impact.

As technology continues to shape our world, the need for thoughtful discourse on its effects and implications becomes increasingly important. Your argumentative essay can contribute to this ongoing conversation, shedding light on the complexities of technology in the modern age.

Argumentative Essay on Technology Example

In today’s rapidly evolving world, technology plays an extremely important role. It has become an integral part of our lives, reshaping how we work, communicate, and live. Nobody can free themselves from the influence of this. The role of technology is really indispensable for three key reasons: facilitation of communication, efficiency and automation in business, and advancement in health care and research.

Facilitation of Communication and Connectivity One of the most significant advantages of technology is its role in enhancing communication and connectivity. The rise of the internet and smartphones has revolutionized how people interact. Instant messaging, social media platforms, and video conferencing enable people from different corners of the world to stay connected effortlessly. This is particularly important for businesses that can now collaborate with partners and clients globally. In online retail business, technology, especially information technology, has made online malls increase their business transactions significantly. For example: Tokopedia made a huge number of transactions in 2019 which was around US$1.3 billion. Moreover, technology has brought distant family members closer and allowed friends to maintain their relationships across borders. In a world that increasingly values global connections, technology has proven to be indispensable.

Efficiency and Automation in Business Technology has vastly improved business operations and efficiency. The automation of tasks that once required substantial human effort has not only reduced labor costs but also minimized errors. For example, manufacturing industries now use robotic systems for repetitive tasks, increasing precision and output. In the service sector, customer relationship management software streamlines operations, providing valuable insights and enhancing customer satisfaction. This efficiency boosts profitability and competitiveness, making technology an essential element of modern business.

The importance of technology extends to the fields of healthcare and research. Medical technology has saved countless lives through advancements in diagnosis, treatment, and patient care. From cutting-edge surgical robots to telemedicine services, technology has improved the accessibility and quality of healthcare. Additionally, technology aids in scientific research by enabling complex simulations, data analysis, and collaboration among researchers worldwide. Without it, we would not have made groundbreaking discoveries or developed life-saving treatments. Technology, therefore, plays a pivotal role in improving the quality of human life.

At some points, we know that technology has negative consequences, such as privacy concerns, job displacement, and overdependence. While these concerns are valid, they do not negate the overall importance of technology. Instead, they highlight the need for responsible and ethical use of technology. For instance, privacy concerns can be addressed through regulations and user education. Job displacement, while real in some sectors, is often counterbalanced by new opportunities created by technology. Overdependence on technology can be mitigated by fostering digital literacy and promoting a balanced lifestyle. In essence, these challenges do not diminish the fundamental significance of technology but emphasize the necessity of responsible integration.

To sum up, technology is undeniably important in our modern world. It enhances communication, boosts efficiency in business, and contributes to advancements in healthcare and research. While concerns exist, they can be addressed responsibly. Embracing technology and harnessing its potential is not only inevitable but also essential for our continued progress and well-being in the 21st century. Can you live your life without technology?

See also short argumentative essay sample for middle school here.

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Essay on Impact of Media on Society

Students are often asked to write an essay on Impact of Media on Society in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Impact of Media on Society

Introduction.

Media plays a significant role in our society today. It is everywhere and it significantly influences our lives.

The Role of Media

Media’s primary role is to deliver accurate news and information. It serves as a bridge between the government and people, helping us understand the world.

Positive Impact

Media has many positive impacts. It educates people, promotes freedom of speech, and creates awareness about global issues.

Negative Impact

However, media can also negatively impact society. It can spread misinformation, create unnecessary panic, and sometimes invade personal privacy.

250 Words Essay on Impact of Media on Society

Media is a significant part of our daily lives, shaping our perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes. Its influence is so profound that it often shapes societal norms and dictates cultural trends.

The Power of Information

Media channels, whether traditional like television and newspapers, or digital like social media, act as a conduit for information. This information can enlighten individuals, leading to an informed, educated society. However, the power of media also comes with the potential for misuse, including the propagation of misinformation or ‘fake news’.

Shaping Public Opinion

Media plays a vital role in shaping public opinion. It can highlight societal issues, prompting public discourse and potentially leading to policy changes. Yet, the media’s power to shape opinions can also be manipulated, leading to biased perspectives that can fuel divisiveness within society.

Social Media and Interpersonal Relationships

Social media has revolutionized the way we communicate, enabling global connections and instant sharing of ideas. However, it has also led to issues such as cyberbullying and increased feelings of isolation as online interactions replace face-to-face communication.

The impact of media on society is multifaceted and profound. While it can educate and connect, it can also misinform and divide. Understanding this power is crucial for media consumers to critically analyze the information they consume, and for media producers to uphold ethical standards in their work.

500 Words Essay on Impact of Media on Society

Media as a source of information.

The media’s primary function is to provide information, making it an indispensable tool in modern society. It keeps us updated on various events happening around the world. People rely on media for information on politics, economy, entertainment, and more. The media’s ability to disseminate information rapidly and accurately enhances societal awareness and promotes informed decision-making.

Media and Public Opinion

Media significantly influences public opinion. It can shape perceptions and attitudes towards various societal issues, from politics to social justice. Through framing stories in certain ways, the media can subtly guide public sentiment. This power can be harnessed for positive change, such as advocating for human rights or environmental conservation. However, it can also be misused, leading to bias or misinformation.

Media and Socialization

Media and democracy.

In democratic societies, media serves as a vital platform for public discourse. It provides a space for diverse viewpoints, facilitating healthy debate and discussion. By holding power to account, the media plays a critical role in promoting transparency and accountability. However, media concentration and political bias can undermine this function, potentially skewing public discourse and threatening democratic processes.

In conclusion, the media’s impact on society is multifaceted, bringing both benefits and challenges. It serves as a vital source of information, shapes public opinion, influences socialization, and underpins democratic processes. However, the potential for misuse underscores the importance of media literacy and critical thinking skills. As consumers and citizens, we must engage with media content actively and critically, recognizing its power to shape our perceptions and our society.

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The Impact Of Social Media On Technology Essay

Negative impacts Social media relies heavily on advanced communication and information technology that work seamlessly in the process of building and supporting technological literacy. A study conducted by Ahn (2011) stated that a person cannot be engaged in meaningful discussions and keep the use of technology without effectively developing advanced skills such as troubleshooting, information evaluation, mediated communication, and others that will all be connecting learners to valuable economic contributors and a connected worldwide economy. As students have become enthralled with social media, their daily attitudes and behaviors have also begun changing. Studies have shown that most students that are frequently on social media sites are more likely to utilize drugs and alcohol, become violent, and become highly sexually active as well (Ahn, 2011). Today it has become the norm for modern technology to highlight numerous acts of violence such as riots, gun battles, sniper attacks, and acts of physical abuse. Excessive users of social media are 94% more likely to have engaged in a physical fight (Fischer, & Reuber, 2011). Such acts of violence may result in students and teenagers becoming more aggressive in their everyday lives. Using social media not only leads to violent behavior but has caused both emotional and social changes. Social media, especially Facebook, has resulted in students becoming heavily addicted. And while many individuals would argue that drugs and/or

Who Is Hilary Stout´s Antisocial Networking?

Imagine a typical teenager; eyes staring at the bright, white screen, fingers moving everywhere from corner to corner and from top to the bottom, scrolling down the page to text a friend, while “liking” posts and sharing photos, all the while not knowing that the brain is negatively changing. Most teenagers think social media is a place that empowers them to make and share content, but they do not realize that it can cause them harm or become an addiction. Hilary Stout, a Los Angeles Times writer, who wrote “Antisocial Networking?,” opposes to social media. Teens who use social media on a daily basis overuse and rely on social media, so their brains are being rewired resulting in less empathy for others, the inability to understand different

Social Media And Synthesis Essay

Also, students get distracted from learning in class because of their constant need to check their Facebook news feed or update twitter which similarly causes lower grades. In fact, “a meta-analysis of 33 studies resolved that being a victim of bullying is a risk of factoring lower grades and standardized test scores”.(“Committee Opinion”) It is very rare for casual relationship between social media and learning to occur. Social media affects learning, 70% of school districts block access to social sites for students safety. (Ahn, June) Overall social media has cause young children and adolescents users more harm than good. Media violence teaches children aggressive behaviors and attitudes. Children fear to be victimized by the violence that observes on the media. A study shows “the content of music videos found nearly one fourth of violence and weapon carrying”. (Agarwl, Vivek) This can cause real life aggression because children follow what they view on the media. There has been an increased risk of aggressive behavior in children that are exposed to media violence. (Agarwl,

Online Social Media Monitoring: Pleasantville School District

“While fights can erupt at any school, the theory is that violence often shows its ugly head-first on social media before it occurs” (Solnik, 2016). Any Web site that allows social interaction is considered and referred to as social media sites. Today’s teens, like our students, has a portal for entertainment and communication, which has significantly grown in the last few years. “For this reason, it is important that parents become aware of the nature of social media sites, given that not all of them are healthy environments for children and adolescents” (O’Keeffee & Clarke-Pearson,

Social Media Is A Monster In Our Society

In our society today, social media is a monster because it has created unrealistic social expectations and unhealthy relationships with ourselves and others. Social media has become a central platform to everyone in our society today and can cause many problems for a large portion of the users. Many of the problems that associate with social media can cause mental and physical harm to users such as, depression, which can lead to suicidal thoughts or actions, eating disorders, and even lowered self-esteem due to the unreasonable comparisons that people make when compared to popular and successful people. One major issue that social media has brought up is the exploitation of the anonymous identification which bullies use to hide from their victims. This can single handedly cause the issues that was recently stated. The social media crowd is now influencing young teens and kids to do drugs. It causes a sort of pressure for some adolescents to engage in illegal activities such as, smoking and drinking. This can be a real danger because they are too young to realize what they are doing to their bodies and could truly put their lives in danger. Social media also causes a learning deficiency in a large portion of students. These students are constantly on their phones and it takes their full attention away from the task at hand. This causes procrastination of assignments and can lead to lower grades. They are not disciplined enough to control themselves and stay away from their

Social Media's Impact on Society Essay

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, what do they mutually have in common? They are all social media websites. Social Media has become the number one way to communicate with other people from around the world. It has been beneficial and helpful to many, on the contrary harmful to some. People use social networks to catch up with a childhood friend, endorse their business, or develop news faster. Other people use it to steal identities, cyberbully, and abuse others. It has stated that social media’s are “websites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts” (“social media.”) With this in mind, how has social media influenced

Social Media Isn T All That Bad For Kids Analysis

Did you know social media can change you? Social media can cause problems with your health? In the article, “Student examines negative effects of social media on teens” by Aurelie Krakowsky and “The Upside of Selfies: Social media isn’t all that bad for kids” by Kelly Wallace talks about social media, but clearly it’s harmful to people. Social media is for people to enjoy on a daily basis and be updated on what is happening in the world; however it can be harmful to your health and even your education. It can lower kids self esteem and make them feel uncomfortable about themselves. It can also cause health issues and distant yourself from the people around you.

Persuasive Essay On Social Media

Social media has been a topic of debate for years. Some people are strongly against any use of it while others like the instant connection it provides. A major concern over social media is the lasting effects it has on teenagers. Social media can affect teenagers through many ways including things like their self-esteem. Cyberbullying is a raging topic of discussion centered around teens social media use. It can also effect their people skills and create a lack of community involvement. Some parents think that watching what their children do on social media is an invasion of privacy but is your concern for their privacy greater than your concern for their safety? Social media poses a great danger to today’s children. It can affect many aspects of their lives.

The Effects Of Social Media On Society Essay

Social media has become prominent parts of life for many young people today. Most people engage with social media without stopping to think what the effects are on our lives, whether positive or negative. Are we as a society becoming more concerned with Facebook "friends" than we are with the people we interact with face-to-face in our daily lives? What will the longterm effects of today 's social media use be? There are many positive aspects, but there are equally as many dangers that come with the use of sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google +, Tumblr, Instagram, gaming sites, and blogs. Social media has both negative and positive effects on society, it is up to the user to decide what impact they want to make. In order to make the right choices, we must dig in and research this topic thoroughly.

Social Media and its Impact Essay

• 5 Works Cited

Social media is a controversy topic in today’s society. Some people think that social media destroys human interaction and real life human relationships. While others think that social media is a bless to humanity. Social media makes human interaction much more convenient and much faster than real life human interaction, it makes globalization a reality, it gives a chance for introverted people to express themselves, and it also benefit develop international relationships whether its business or social.

The Impact Of Social Media On Organizations And Business Essay

In this Research paper I am going to discuss about the Impact of social media on organizations and business. In this paper I am going to start from the initial stage of the organizations technologies and how they are promoting their technologies and products using the different kind of forms. And how the organizations and the business are going to interact with the customers easily through the social media and also the there are negative shades along with the positive shades on the organizations. While many organizations think that they are much influenced by the impact of social media on them, as the recent studies and statics proved that. Examples of the different organizations and business which are got effected by social media are discussed in this paper. The ethical issues related to social media on organizations and business are also discussed in this paper. And the different effects and the positiveness of the social media also discussed. And the conclusion for overall impact of social media on the organizations and business are well discussed.

Social Media And Its Impact On Society Essay

Social media has gained immense popularity, following increased access to the internet and technology devices including smart phones. Social media is used to denote platforms in which people build and share social connections; thus enhancing information sharing and interaction. Major examples include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram. Through social media, people can connect, interact and exchange information such as pictures, videos and other digital media by registering as users in these platforms and updating information affecting their lives on their profiles. When social media applications came into existence, these were mostly used for interacting and sharing with friends, relations and new friends acquired through these platforms. Social media has however been constantly abused, as people turn it into a ground to vent, lie, insult, bully or threaten others. The social networks no longer serve their intended purpose in the society and users have taken advantage of the free space to say whatever they want with no regard to how it affects others. People have used such domains to brandish their selfish acts and gains.

Digital Technology And Social Media Essay

More recently than in years past, digital technology and social media have grown to become a part of our everyday lives. The recent rise in those who own smartphones allows this everyday use of digital technology and social networking to be easier than ever before. At any time and any place, we have the ability to “socialize” with nearly anyone—even celebrities who have no idea most of us even exist. The continuous consumption of digital media has altered once personal face-to-face communication to just that, digital. More and more people seem to be living in what Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon call “The Cloud”. “The Cloud” is a seemingly alternate universe of which communication is altered from personal to digital. This universe has led to debates over whether or not these online communities are real or whether social media is actually social. Various digital media sources also encourage users to create individual identities, of which may or may not actually be real. It seems as though our reliance on digital technology and social media have allowed the determination of certain aspects of our lives. Although social media allows us to connect with nearly anyone at any time, Americans have taken advantage of its use, and their attention has been drawn away from real life interactions to digital ones. The ramifications of such influences reflect the hidden insecurities of Americans and, ironically, emphasize our inclination to boast about ourselves by allowing others to see the

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Social Media Essay

Social media is one of the most common ways for people to communicate anywhere and at any time in modern society. Some people think that it is beneficial to have in society. Although, many people are starting to see negative effects arise from the use of social media as well. These negative effects are increasing and becoming more problematic every day. The disadvantages of social media far outweigh the advantages. Social media effects everyone in society, especially teenagers by negatively impacting their lives, face-to-face interactions, and mental health.

The Effects Of Social Media On Youth Essay

Studies have shown that the average person now spends more time each day on their phone and computer than they do sleeping according to Nick McGillivray (“What are the Effects of Social Media on Youth?). Social has become part of our social society, especially for the many youths. There are positives to being on social media and also equal amounts of danger that come with using social networking sites, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. These social networking sites also have effects on today’s youth by altering the way they behave, the way they learn, in not only a classroom setting but also in the real world setting, and the way that they socialize with their peers and others.

At this very moment, there are thousands of people worldwide who are retweeting posts on Twitter, liking pictures on Instagram or posting a status on Facebook. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are few of the many social media platforms that have become prevalent in our society. Because social media applications and websites allow users with easy access to communication with others around the world, individuals all across the globe are able to socially interact on a daily basis. Erving Goffman, Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead, three of many sociologists who viewed society through the interactionist perspective, would use these daily interactions to make generalizations about society as a whole. The paradigm of symbolic interactionism reaches conclusion about different groups in society, generally by observing everyday social interactions. Accordingly, interactionists would view social media as an aspect of society that consists of constant social interactions that continuously influences and affects individuals and the whole of society.

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Move over, text: Video is the new medium of our lives

We are increasingly learning and communicating by means of the moving image. It will shift our culture in untold ways.

• Clive Thompson archive page

The other day I idly opened TikTok to find a video of a young woman refinishing an old hollow-bodied electric guitar.

It was a montage of close-up shots—looking over her shoulder as she sanded and scraped the wood, peeled away the frets, expertly patched the cracks with filler, and then spray-painted it a radiant purple. She compressed days of work into a tight 30-second clip. It was mesmerizing.

Of course, that wasn’t the only video I saw that day. In barely another five minutes of swiping around, I saw a historian discussing the songs Tolkien wrote in The Lord of the Rings ; a sailor puzzling over a capsized boat he’d found deep at sea; a tearful mother talking about parenting a child with ADHD; a Latino man laconically describing a dustup with his racist neighbor; and a linguist discussing how Gen Z uses video-game metaphors in everyday life.

I could go on. I will! And so, probably, will you. This is what the internet looks like now. It used to be a preserve of text and photos—but increasingly, it is a forest of video.

This is one of the most profound technology shifts that will define our future: We are entering the age of the moving image.

For centuries, when everyday people had to communicate at a distance, they really had only two options. They could write something down; they could send a picture. The moving image was too expensive to shoot, edit, and disseminate. Only pros could wield it.

The smartphone, the internet, and social networks like TikTok have rapidly and utterly transformed this situation. It’s now common, when someone wants to hurl an idea into the world, not to pull out a keyboard and type but to turn on a camera and talk. For many young people, video might be the prime way to express ideas.

As media thinkers like Marshall McLuhan have intoned, a new medium changes us. It changes the way we learn, the way we think—and what we think about . When mass printing emerged, it helped create a culture of news, mass literacy, and bureaucracy, and—some argue—the very idea of scientific evidence. So how will mass video shift our culture?

For starters, I’d argue, it is helping us share knowledge that used to be damnably hard to capture in text. I’m a long-distance cyclist, for example, and if I need to fix my bike, I don’t bother reading a guide. I look for a video explainer. If you’re looking to express—or absorb—knowledge that’s visual, physical, or proprioceptive, the moving image nearly always wins. Athletes don’t read a textual description of what they did wrong in the last game; they watch the clips. Hence the wild popularity, on video platforms, of instructional video—makeup tutorials, cooking demonstrations. (Or even learn-to-code material: I learned Python by watching coders do it.)

Video also is no longer about mere broadcast, but about conversation—it’s a way to respond to others, notes Raven Maragh-Lloyd, the author of Black Networked Resistance and a professor of film and media studies at Washington University. “We’re seeing a rise of audience participation,” she notes, including people doing “duets” on TikTok or response videos on YouTube. Everyday creators see video platforms as ways to talk back to power.

“My students were like, ‘If there’s a video over seven seconds, we’re not watching it.’” Brianna Wiens, Waterloo University

There’s also an increasingly sophisticated lexicon of visual styles. Today’s video creators riff on older film aesthetics to make their points. Brianna Wiens, an assistant professor of digital media and rhetoric at Waterloo University, says she admired how a neuroscientist used stop-motion video, a technique from the early days of film, to produce TikTok discussions of vaccines during the height of the covid-19 pandemic. Or consider the animated GIF, which channels the “zoetrope” of the 1800s, looping a short moment in time to examine over and over.

Indeed, as video becomes more woven into the vernacular of daily life, it’s both expanding and contracting in size. There are streams on Twitch where you can watch someone for hours—and viral videos where someone compresses an idea into mere seconds. Those latter ones have a particular rhetorical power because they’re so ingestible. “I was teaching a class called Digital Lives, and my students were like, If there’s a video over seven seconds, we’re not watching it ,” Wiens says, laughing.

Are there dangers ahead as use of the moving image grows? Possibly. Maybe it will too powerfully reward people with the right visual and physical charisma. (Not necessarily a novel danger: Text and radio had their own versions.) More subtly, video is technologically still adolescent. It’s not yet easy to search, or to clip and paste and annotate and collate—to use video for quietly organizing our thoughts, the way we do with text. Until those tool sets emerge (and you can see that beginning), its power will be limited. Lastly, maybe the moving image will become so common and go-to that’ll kill off print culture.

Media scholars are not terribly stressed about this final danger. New forms of media rarely kill off older ones. Indeed, as the late priest and scholar Walter Ong pointed out, creating television and radio requires writing plenty of text—all those scripts. Today’s moving-media culture is possibly even more saturated with writing. Videos on Instagram and TikTok often include artfully arranged captions, “diegetic” text commenting on the action, or data visualizations. You read while you watch; write while you shoot.

“We’re getting into all kinds of interesting hybrids and relationships,” notes Lev Manovich, a professor at the City University of New York. The tool sets for sculpting and editing video will undoubtedly improve too, perhaps using AI to help auto-edit, redact, summarize. 

One firm, Reduct, already offers a clever trick: You alter a video by editing the transcript. Snip out a sentence, and it snips out the related visuals. Public defenders use it to parse and edit police videos. They’re often knee-deep in the stuff—the advent of body cameras worn by officers has produced an ocean of footage, as Reduct’s CEO, Robert Ochshorn, tells me. 

Meanwhile, generative AI will make it easier to create a film out of pure imagination. This means, of course, that we’ll see a new flood of visual misinformation. We’ll need to develop a sharper culture of finding the useful amid the garbage. It took print a couple of centuries to do that, as scholars of the book will tell you—centuries during which the printing press helped spark untold war and upheaval. We’ll be living through the same process with the moving image.

So strap yourselves in. Whatever else happens, it’ll be interesting. 

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Social Media — The Impact Of Social Media And Technology On Society

The Impact of Social Media and Technology on Society

• Categories: Impact of Technology Social Media

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Words: 2091 |

11 min read

Published: Apr 11, 2019

Words: 2091 | Pages: 5 | 11 min read

Table of contents

Influence of social media on our opinions of the world around us, how technology impacts our personal privacy, impact of data security concern on society, the future of technology and the impact on society.

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NICHD-NIMH Workshop: Impact of Technology and Digital Media on Child and Adolescent Development and Mental Health

April 4–5, 2024

Executive Summary

This public two-day workshop was convened in response to the Children and Media Research Advancement (CAMRA) Act, which was included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (P.L. 117-328) and directed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to launch research on how technology and digital media (TDM) affect the cognitive development, physical health outcomes, and socioemotional development of infants, children, and adolescents. Specifically, the CAMRA Act directed the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to examine how exposure to and use of TDM contribute to risk and resilience within this population. The invited workshop panelists reflected an array of scientific disciplines and research perspectives, with sessions featuring overviews of current TDM research findings and panel discussions addressing the need for greater diversity and inclusion in TDM studies as well as conceptual and measurement issues when assessing the short- and long-term effects of TDM. Over the course of the workshop, several common themes emerged regarding opportunities, gaps, challenges, and future directions in TDM research:

• A more balanced approach to understanding the positive, negative, and/or neutral impacts of TDM is needed. Much of the current research emphasizes the negative consequences of TDM use and exposure for infants, children, and adolescents (e.g., the promotion of risky behaviors, disrupted parent–child interactions). However, TDM use and exposure also have a wide variety of positive applications and effects (e.g., access to educational resources, building a sense of community) or even no effects at all. For example, youth with mental health concerns or from marginalized populations could experience either the negative effects of TDM exposure or the benefits of social support and information. A more balanced approach to TDM research will expand our understanding of the impacts of TDM use and exposure in youth and can help inform practices that maximize the benefits and decrease the risks of TDM.
• There is a tension between the time needed to conduct rigorous longitudinal research, the ever-changing technological landscape, and the community’s urgent need for answers and guidance. The need for both randomized controlled trials and observational longitudinal studies to describe real-world use patterns and determine the impact of TDM use over time, coupled with the rapid speed of technological change, presents both methodological and practical challenges. Given the increasing demand for timely and relevant findings to inform policy and practice guidelines and practical advice for parents and youth, the distinction between correlational and causal findings is often blurred. Some potential solutions include:  designing both observational and experimental studies with a complementary mix of cross-sectional and shorter-term longitudinal work; adapting proactively to technological developments when possible; focusing on the affordances of different technologies rather than specific platforms; and leveraging natural experiments and cohort data, and pragmatic randomized controlled trials as new technologies becomes more prevalent.
• To support the generalizability of findings, more consistent and ecologically valid measures of TDM use and exposure across multiple settings are needed . In order to compare results and make broader generalizations, measures need to be better aligned across studies. Further, measures of TDM use and exposure need to move beyond parent- and self-report and capture other important aspects of the user experience. For example, the impact of engaging for an hour with online educational content likely differs significantly from engaging with social media, which may include inappropriate or discriminatory content. Studies should draw on multiple disciplines (e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology) and measure processes in both naturalistic and laboratory settings.
• Research should center on the needs, perspectives, and motivations of those who will be using or supervising the use of TDM, and a one-size-fits-all approach should be avoided. Individual, family, and community-level differences in terms of both motivations for TDM use and its impacts need to be considered. The manner of engagement with TDM and its effects on an individual vary, for example, by developmental stage, cultural identity, geography, and access to resources, among others. This person-centered approach requires a research workforce with diverse backgrounds and lived experiences and the ability to draw upon them to inform and facilitate collaborations across invested parties (e.g., institutional partners and study participants). It is important for researchers to remember that the digital world is the “real world” and interacts with users’ in-person experiences. Thus, understanding how use and exposure interacts with, and/or are integrated into, in-person experiences at the individual level is critical. Collaboration is integral to the design process, which might involve academic researchers, healthcare providers, school administrators, governmental organizations, and technology companies. Youth should be included as active participants in TDM research, as should parents or caregivers, teachers, and mental health professionals.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) can potentially enhance learning in the TDM environment, but it may also perpetuate bias if improperly designed. AI can stimulate dialogue and supplement human-to-human learning interactions when it is grounded in learning theory. However, computer algorithms, often trained on homogenous, adult datasets and driving content exposure across many platforms, may also perpetuate biases. This problem should be addressed at the design stage, incorporating both youth input, diverse perspectives, and non-English languages. In research design, computer scientists should be included as project leaders.
• Research in the field needs to address differential experiences for digital natives as compared to digital immigrants, as well as digital divides. There are important differences between digital natives (people who grew up with various technologies) and digital immigrants (those born to earlier generations who are accommodating novel technologies into their lives as older youth or adults). Within the United States, there are digital divides based on geography and access to resources, with greater opportunities for those with access to TDM resources. Research on TDM use among infants, children, and adolescents has focused primarily on the developed world, but some of the greatest potential impacts may be among the estimated 95% of the global population that has significantly less exposure and access to these technologies.
• Greater emphasis is needed on building digital literacy and encouraging digital citizenship. It is becoming increasingly important to understand how best to empower young TDM users, families, and the communities that support them to engage with TDM intentionally and responsibly. Research is needed to determine the types of tools that can be most effective in teaching youth of all ages how to be safe online, to mindfully participate online, and to balance time spent on and offline.

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What is smartphone addiction?

Causes and effects of smartphone and internet addiction, signs and symptoms of smartphone addiction, self-help tips for smartphone addiction, modify your smartphone use, step-by-step, treatment for smartphone and internet addiction, helping a child or teen with smartphone addiction, smartphone and internet addiction.

Worried about your phone or internet use? These tips can help you break free of the habit and better balance your life, online and off.

While a smartphone, tablet, or computer can be a hugely productive tool, compulsive use of these devices can interfere with work, school, and relationships. When you spend more time on social media or playing games than you do interacting with real people, or you can’t stop yourself from repeatedly checking texts, emails, or apps—even when it has negative consequences in your life—it may be time to reassess your technology use.

Smartphone addiction, sometimes colloquially known as “nomophobia” (fear of being without a mobile phone), is often fueled by an internet overuse problem or internet addiction disorder. After all, it’s rarely the phone or tablet itself that creates the compulsion, but rather the games, apps, and online worlds it connects us to.

Smartphone addiction can encompass a variety of impulse-control problems, including:

Virtual relationships. Addiction to social networking , dating apps, texting, and messaging can extend to the point where virtual, online friends become more important than real-life relationships. We’ve all seen the couples sitting together in a restaurant ignoring each other and engaging with their smartphones instead. While the internet can be a great place to meet new people, reconnect with old friends, or even start romantic relationships, online relationships are not a healthy substitute for real-life interactions. Online friendships can be appealing as they tend to exist in a bubble, not subject to the same demands or stresses as messy, real-world relationships. Compulsive use of dating apps can change your focus to short-term hookups instead of developing long-term relationships.

Information overload. Compulsive web surfing, watching videos, playing games, or checking news feeds can lead to lower productivity at work or school and isolate you for hours at a time. Compulsive use of the internet and smartphone apps can cause you to neglect other aspects of your life, from real-world relationships to hobbies and social pursuits.

Cybersex addiction. Compulsive use of internet pornography, sexting, nude-swapping, or adult messaging services can impact negatively on your real-life intimate relationships and overall emotional health. While online pornography and cybersex addictions are types of sexual addiction, the internet makes it more accessible, relatively anonymous, and very convenient. It’s easy to spend hours engaging in fantasies impossible in real life. Excessive use of dating apps that facilitate casual sex can make it more difficult to develop long-term intimate relationships or damage an existing relationship.

Online compulsions, such as gaming, gambling, stock trading, online shopping, or bidding on auction sites like eBay can often lead to financial and job-related problems. While gambling addiction has been a well-documented problem for years, the availability of internet gambling has made gambling far more accessible. Compulsive stock trading or online shopping can be just as financially and socially damaging. eBay addicts may wake up at strange hours in order to be online for the last remaining minutes of an auction. You may purchase things you don’t need and can’t afford just to experience the excitement of placing the winning bid.

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While you can experience impulse-control problems with a laptop or desktop computer, the size and convenience of smartphones and tablets means that we can take them just about anywhere and gratify our compulsions at any time. In fact, most of us are rarely ever more than five feet from our smartphones. Like the use of drugs and alcohol, they can trigger the release of the brain chemical dopamine and alter your mood. You can also rapidly build up tolerance so that it takes more and more time in front of these screens to derive the same pleasurable reward.

Heavy smartphone use can often be symptomatic of other underlying problems, such as stress , anxiety, depression , or loneliness . At the same time, it can also exacerbate these problems. If you use your smartphone as a “security blanket” to relieve feelings of anxiety, loneliness, or awkwardness in social situations , for example, you’ll succeed only in cutting yourself off further from people around you. Staring at your phone will deny you the face-to-face interactions that can help to meaningfully connect you to others, alleviate anxiety, and boost your mood. In other words, the remedy you’re choosing for your anxiety (engaging with your smartphone), is actually making your anxiety worse.

Smartphone or internet addiction can also negatively impact your life by:

Increasing loneliness and depression. While it may seem that losing yourself online will temporarily make feelings such as loneliness, depression, and boredom evaporate into thin air, it can actually make you feel even worse. A 2014 study found a correlation between high social media usage and depression and anxiety. Users, especially teens, tend to compare themselves unfavorably with their peers on social media, promoting feelings of loneliness and depression.

Fueling anxiety. One researcher found that the mere presence of a phone in a work place tends to make people more anxious and perform poorly on given tasks. The heavier a person’s phone use, the greater the anxiety they experienced.

Increasing stress. Using a smartphone for work often means work bleeds into your home and personal life. You feel the pressure to always be on, never out of touch from work. This need to continually check and respond to email can contribute to higher stress levels and even burnout .

Exacerbating attention deficit disorders. The constant stream of messages and information from a smartphone can overwhelm the brain and make it impossible to focus attention on any one thing for more than a few minutes without feeling compelled to move on to something else.

Diminishing your ability to concentrate and think deeply or creatively. The persistent buzz, ping or beep of your smartphone can distract you from important tasks, slow your work, and interrupt those quiet moments that are so crucial to creativity and problem solving. Instead of ever being alone with our thoughts, we’re now always online and connected.

Disturbing your sleep. Excessive smartphone use can disrupt your sleep , which can have a serious impact on your overall mental health. It can impact your memory, affect your ability to think clearly, and reduce your cognitive and learning skills.

Encouraging self-absorption. A UK study found that people who spend a lot of time on social media are more likely to display negative personality traits such as narcissism . Snapping endless selfies, posting all your thoughts or details about your life can create an unhealthy self-centeredness, distancing you from real-life relationships and making it harder to cope with stress.

There is no specific amount of time spent on your phone, or the frequency you check for updates, or the number of messages you send or receive that indicates an addiction or overuse problem.

Spending a lot of time connected to your phone only becomes a problem when it absorbs so much of your time it causes you to neglect your face-to-face relationships, your work, school, hobbies, or other important things in your life. If you find yourself ignoring friends over lunch to read Facebook updates or compulsively checking your phone in while driving or during school lectures, then it’s time to reassess your smartphone use and strike a healthier balance in your life.

Warning signs of smartphone or internet overuse include:

Trouble completing tasks at work or home . Do you find laundry piling up and little food in the house for dinner because you’ve been busy chatting online, texting, or playing video games? Perhaps you find yourself working late more often because you can’t complete your work on time.

Isolation from family and friends . Is your social life suffering because of all the time you spend on your phone or other device? If you’re in a meeting or chatting with friends, do you lose track of what’s being said because you’re checking your phone? Have friends and family expressed concern about the amount of time you spend on your phone? Do you feel like no one in your “real” life—even your spouse—understands you like your online friends?

Concealing your smartphone use . Do you sneak off to a quiet place to use your phone? Do you hide your smartphone use or lie to your boss and family about the amount of time you spend online? Do you get irritated or cranky if your online time is interrupted?

Having a “fear of missing out” (or FOMO) . Do you hate to feel out of the loop or think you’re missing out on important news or information if you don’t check you phone regularly? Do you need to compulsively check social media because you’re anxious that others are having a better time, or leading a more exciting life than you? Do you get up at night to check your phone?

Feeling of dread, anxiety, or panic if you leave your smartphone at home , the battery runs down or the operating system crashes. Or do you feel phantom vibrations—you think your phone has vibrated but when you check, there are no new messages or updates?

Withdrawal symptoms from smartphone addiction

A common warning sign of smartphone or internet addiction is experiencing withdrawal symptoms when you try to cut back on your smartphone use. These may include:

• Restlessness
• Anger or irritability
• Difficulty concentrating
• Sleep problems
• Craving access to your smartphone or other device

There are a number of steps you can take to get your smartphone and internet use under control. While you can initiate many of these measures yourself, an addiction is hard to beat on your own, especially when temptation is always within easy reach. It can be all too easy to slip back into old patterns of usage. Look for outside support, whether it’s from family, friends, or a professional therapist .

To help you identify your problem areas, keep a log of when and how much you use your smartphone for non-work or non-essential activities. There are specific apps that can help with this, enabling you to track the time you spend on your phone. Are there times of day that you use your phone more? Are there other things you could be doing instead? The more you understand your smartphone use, the easier it will be to curb your habits and regain control of your time.

Recognize the triggers that make you reach for your phone. Is it when you’re lonely or bored? If you are struggling with depression, stress, or anxiety, for example, your excessive smartphone use might be a way to self-soothe rocky moods . Instead, find healthier and more effective ways of managing your moods, such as practicing relaxation techniques.

Understand the difference between interacting in-person and online. Human beings are social creatures. We’re not meant to be isolated or to rely on technology for human interaction. Socially interacting with another person face-to-face—making eye contact, responding to body language—can make you feel calm, safe, and understood, and quickly put the brakes on stress . Interacting through text, email or messaging bypasses these nonverbal cues so won’t have the same effect on your emotional well-being. Besides, online friends can’t hug you when a crisis hits, visit you when you’re sick, or celebrate a happy occasion with you.

Build your coping skills. Perhaps tweeting, texting or blogging is your way of coping with stress or anger. Or maybe you have trouble relating to others and find it easier to communicate with people online. Building skills in these areas will help you weather the stresses and strains of daily life without relying on your smartphone.

Recognize any underlying problems that may support your compulsive behavior. Have you had problems with alcohol or drugs in the past? Does anything about your smartphone use remind you of how you used to drink or use drugs to numb or distract yourself?

Strengthen your support network. Set aside dedicated time each week for friends and family. If you are shy, there are ways to overcome social awkwardness and make lasting friends without relying on social media or the internet. To find people with similar interests, try reaching out to colleagues at work, joining a sports team or book club, enrolling in an education class, or volunteering for a good cause. You’ll be able to interact with others like you, let relationships develop naturally, and form friendships that will enhance your life and strengthen your health.

For most people, getting control over their smartphone and internet use isn’t a case of quitting cold turkey. Think of it more like going on a diet. Just as you still need to eat, you probably still need to use your phone for work, school, or to stay in touch with friends. Your goal should be to cut back to more healthy levels of use.

• Set goals for when you can use your smartphone. For example, you might schedule use for certain times of day, or you could reward yourself with a certain amount of time on your phone once you’ve completed a homework assignment or finished a chore, for instance.
• Turn off your phone at certain times of the day, such as when you’re driving, in a meeting, at the gym, having dinner, or playing with your kids. Don’t take your phone with you to the bathroom.
• Don’t bring your phone or tablet to bed. The blue light emitted by the screens can disrupt your sleep if used within two hours of bedtime. Turn devices off and leave them in another room overnight to charge. Instead of reading eBooks on your phone or tablet at night, pick up a book. You’ll not only sleep better but research shows you’ll also remember more of what you’ve read.
• Replace your smartphone use with healthier activities. If you are bored and lonely, resisting the urge to use your smartphone can be very difficult. Have a plan for other ways to fill the time, such as meditating , reading a book, or chatting with friends in person.
• Play the “phone stack” game. Spending time with other smartphone addicts? Play the “phone stack” game. When you’re having lunch, dinner, or drinks together, have everyone place their smartphones face down on the table. Even as the phones buzz and beep, no one is allowed to grab their device. If someone can’t resist checking their phone, that person has to pick up the check for everyone.
• Remove social media apps from your phone so you can only check Facebook, Twitter and the like from your computer. And remember: what you see of others on social media is rarely an accurate reflection of their lives—people exaggerate the positive aspects of their lives, brushing over the doubts and disappointments that we all experience. Spending less time comparing yourself unfavorably to these stylized representations can help to boost your mood and sense of self-worth.
• Limit checks. If you compulsively check your phone every few minutes, wean yourself off by limiting your checks to once every 15 minutes. Then once every 30 minutes, then once an hour. If you need help, there are apps that can automatically limit when you’re able to access your phone.
• Curb your fear of missing out. Accept that by limiting your smartphone use, you’re likely going to miss out on certain invitations, breaking news, or new gossip. There is so much information available on the internet, it’s almost impossible to stay on top of everything, anyway. Accepting this can be liberating and help break your reliance on technology.

If you need more help to curb your smartphone or internet use, there are now specialist treatment centers that offer digital detox programs to help you disconnect from digital media. Individual and group therapy can also give you a tremendous boost in controlling your technology use.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy provides step-by-step ways to stop compulsive behaviors and change your perceptions about your smartphone and the internet. Therapy can also help you learn healthier ways of coping with uncomfortable emotions—such as stress, anxiety, or depression—that may be fueling your smartphone use.

Marriage or couples counseling. If excessive use of internet pornography or online affairs is affecting your relationship, counseling can help you work through these challenging issues and reconnect with your partner.

Group support. Organizations such as Internet Tech Addiction Anonymous (ITAA) and On-Line Gamers Anonymous offer online support and face-to-face meetings to curb excessive technology use. Of course, you need real-life people to benefit fully from any addiction support group. Online support groups can be helpful in finding sources of assistance, but it’s easy to use them as an excuse to spend even more time on your smartphone. Sex Addicts Anonymous can be a place to try if you’re having trouble with cybersex addiction.

Any parent who’s tried to drag a child or teen away from a smartphone or tablet knows how challenging it can be to separate kids from social media, messaging apps, or online games and videos. Youngsters lack the maturity to curb their smartphone use on their own, but simply confiscating the device can often backfire, creating anxiety and withdrawal symptoms in your child. Instead, there are plenty of other ways to help your child find a healthier balance:

Be a good role model. Children have a strong impulse to imitate, so it’s important you manage your own smartphone and internet use. It’s no good asking your child to unplug at the dinner table while you’re staring at your own phone or tablet. Don’t let your own smartphone use distract from parent-child interactions.

Use apps to monitor and limit your child’s smartphone use. There are a number of apps available that can limit your child’s data usage or restrict texting and web browsing to certain times of the day. Other apps can eliminate messaging capabilities while in motion, so you can prevent your teen using a smartphone while driving.

Create “phone-free” zones. Restrict the use of smartphones or tablets to a common area of the house where you can keep an eye on your child’s activity and limit time online. Ban phones from the dinner table and bedrooms and insist they’re turned off after a certain time at night.

Encourage other interests and social activities. Get your child away from screens by exposing them to other hobbies and activities, such as team sports, Scouts, and after-school clubs. Spend time as a family unplugged.

Talk to your child about underlying issues. Compulsive smartphone use can be the sign of deeper problems. Is your child having problems fitting in? Has there been a recent major change, like a move or divorce, which is causing stress? Is your child suffering with other issues at school or home?

Get help. Teenagers often rebel against their parents , but if they hear the same information from a different authority figure, they may be more inclined to listen. Try a sports coach, doctor, or respected family friend. Don’t be afraid to seek professional counseling if you are concerned about your child’s smartphone use.

Support groups

On-Line Gamers Anonymous  – Help and support for problems caused by excessive game playing. (OLGA)

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous  – 12-step programs for sexual addictions. (SLAA)

More Information

• Risky Business: Internet Addiction - Help for recognizing and dealing with smartphone and internet addiction. (Mental Health America)
• Internet Gaming - Symptoms of gaming disorder. (American Psychiatric Association)
• Dopamine, Smartphones & You: A battle for your time - How using a smartphone can deliver a release of dopamine, reinforcing your behavior. (Harvard University)
• Take Control - Things you can do right now to build a healthier relationship with your smartphone. (Center for Humane Technology)
• Yu, S., & Sussman, S. (2020). Does Smartphone Addiction Fall on a Continuum of Addictive Behaviors? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(2), 422. Link
• Conditions for Further Study. (2013). In Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. American Psychiatric Association. Link
• Internet Gaming. (n.d.). Retrieved August 2, 2021. Link
• Sohn, S. Y., Rees, P., Wildridge, B., Kalk, N. J., & Carter, B. (2019). Prevalence of problematic smartphone usage and associated mental health outcomes amongst children and young people: A systematic review, meta-analysis and GRADE of the evidence. BMC Psychiatry, 19(1), 356. Link
• Dopamine, Smartphones & You: A battle for your time. (2018, May 1). Science in the News. Link
• Canale, N., Vieno, A., Doro, M., Rosa Mineo, E., Marino, C., & Billieux, J. (2019). Emotion-related impulsivity moderates the cognitive interference effect of smartphone availability on working memory. Scientific Reports, 9(1), 18519. Link
• Twenge, Jean M., Thomas E. Joiner, Megan L. Rogers, and Gabrielle N. Martin. “Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time.” Clinical Psychological Science 6, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 3–17. Link
• Lin, L. yi, Sidani, J. E., Shensa, A., Radovic, A., Miller, E., Colditz, J. B., Hoffman, B. L., Giles, L. M., & Primack, B. A. (2016). Association between Social Media Use and Depression among U.S. Young Adults. Depression and Anxiety, 33(4), 323–331. Link
• Kross, Ethan, Philippe Verduyn, Emre Demiralp, Jiyoung Park, David Seungjae Lee, Natalie Lin, Holly Shablack, John Jonides, and Oscar Ybarra. “Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults.” PLOS ONE 8, no. 8 (August 14, 2013): e69841. Link

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