Has technology made people lazy?

Technology has been advancing rapidly for the last 100 years after the Industrial Revolution and it has benefited mankind a lot since then. But is new technology making us lazy? Or does it help us to improve our daily lives? In this article, we will discuss if technology will turn us into lazy pigs or the other way around.

Firstly, according to a research study which was done by the World Health Organization, more and more people in developed countries such as the US, the UK and Japan are less willing to do house cleaning by themselves after cleaning robots have been introduced to society. Many people think they can just buy a cleaning robot and hand over the dirty and time-consuming work to it instead of doing the work by themselves. Also, according to another survey which was conducted in the States, after the introduction of VR sports, people have been less willing to go outside and do “real” sports such as jogging, playing American football or going to the gym, etc. It’s because VR technology can simulate different environments and activities. This in turn allows users to play any sports they want inside their house, especially extreme sport activities, which require a lot of training and might be risky to engage in. In this way, new technology is making people become physically inactive.

Secondly, with the introduction and improvements of Internet connections and communication programs, more and more people are becoming less socially active. According to a research study done locally in Hong Kong, with the introduction of more social media apps on the market, people have been less willing to go outside and have meetups with their friends and even in the worst-case scenario, people will just use WhatsApp to chat while eating together in a restaurant. The introduction of social apps has enabled people to follow their friends via the Internet. They can know what has happened to them recently by checking what they have posted on the site. In addition, people can now use texting and webcam apps to chat with their friends. Some may argue that this form of communication is better than doing meetups. In conclusion, technology is making people less socially active.

Although technology might be harmful to our daily lives, it can also be beneficial to us.

Firstly, technology can help people who are in need. For example, an individual with physical disabilities might have problems with their daily lives, like going to a mall to buy food or travel to another place. With the introduction of shopping apps in recent years, disabled people can use them to shop online and they can buy things ranging from clothes to food. After they have bought the items, the shops can deliver them to their houses and they won’t have to go to the mart by themselves. In addition, in some countries such as the United States, public transport services are not as developed in some states where many people have to drive by themselves in order to get to another place and it has also greatly affected the daily lives of the disabled. But with the recent developments of self-driving cars, people won’t have to drive manually. Instead it will be done by a computer; it will greatly benefit those people. Accordingly, technology greatly improves the lives of those who are in need.

Secondly, advanced technology might help us to save more time. In the modern day, people are getting a lot busier than in the past with the rapid development of cites around the world and on account of that, more people would like to save as much time as they possibly can. For example, with the search engines on the Internet, people can now do research sitting at home instead of going to the library. This indeed helps save a lot of time.

Lastly, technology might be beneficial or harmful to our daily lives, but personally, I think we need to create a balance between our health and using technology.