Aspeople rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability ofhumans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate. Writea response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree withthe statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. Indeveloping and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which thestatement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerationsshape your position. The statement claims that the ability of humans tothink for themselves will “surely deteriorate” as people become increasinglydependent on technology nowadays. While this statement has some merits in thesense of telling the partial truth of today’s mankind, it overestimates theadverse effects of technology on humans’ thinking ability. Although we havewitnessed the unfortunate trend of deterioration in some areas likemathematical computation, designing and so forth, the ability of humans tothink for themselves in other perspectives, especially in terms of conceptualand abstract thinking, have dramatically increased thanks to the advances intechnology. The new problems brought by advanced technology also demandscreative and innovative thinking of the mankind.
First of all, I admit that the ability of humans tothink for themselves have deteriorated in many areas with the advancement oftechnology. For example, students from primary and middle schools becomeincreasing dependent on calculators for computational tasks. Their ability todo computation by hand is worsening to the degree that worries their teachers.Many of the students in the States cannot compete with their counterparts inless developed countries like china and india when it comes to mathematicalcomputation skills. Similarly, without advanced design softwares like CADs,many of the well-educated designers may not know how and where to start theirprojects. We have to acknowledge that technology has become an indispensablepart of our everyday work and life.
However, besides these basic tasks that do notusually involve critical and abstract thinking, we have seen a dramaticincrease in humans’ ability to think for themselves, in areas that involvecritical and innovative thinking. Forexample, we have been more than ever worrying about the future of mankind andthis planet, and one of the key reason is about global warming. Without today’sadvanced technology including super computers and satellite imaging, we cannever notice such a threatening trend, let alone thinking about that. With thehelp of current technology, scientists can predict about the possible outcomesof such trend in the foreseeable future, and provide guidelines on what weordinary people can do to alleviate the effects. With the help of technology,we have developed the most advanced medicine that we can never imagine just acentury ago. we can rely on computers to simulate the effects of differentcombinations of ingredients, for example, within just a few minutes, at most somecouples of days, whereas the same task in the past requires at least a team ofpeople doing the actual implementation and experiment that would cost a lotmore, in terms of the money and time spent.
Technology not only helps us to solve existingproblems, but also bring about new problems that worth attention. These problemsalso demands creative and innovative thinking from us, making the mankind thinkfor themselves. The operation of automobile, power plants and so on requires alarge amount of oil on a daily basis. However the oil resources on earth arefinite, and the oil price is significantly higher now than decades ago. thishas forced the mankind to develop clean and sustainable energy for the futuregeneration, like wind and solar energy. This process of thinking in turnpromotes even more advanced technology in these fields.
To sum up, the statement is an oversimplification andunfair generalization about the real truth concerning about the technology andits effects of humans’ ability to think. We are not totallyhopeless with the technology that we create, but rather, we should embrace apromising future for the mankind. |