As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
The statement linking technology negatively with free thinking plays on recent human experience over the past century. Surely there has been no time in history where the lived lives of people have changed more dramatically. A quick reflection on a typical day reveals how technology has revolutionized the world. Most people commute to work in an automobile that runs on an internal combustion engine. During the workday, chances are high that the employee will interact with a computer that processes information on silicon bridges that are .09 microns wide. Upon leaving home, family members will be reached through wireless networks that utilize satellites orbiting the earth. Each of these common occurrences could have been inconceivable at the turn of the 19th century.
The statement attempts to bridge these dramatic changes to a reduction in the ability for humans to think for themselves. The assumption is that an increased reliance on technology negates the need for people to think creatively to solve previous quandaries. Looking back at the introduction, one could argue that without a car, computer, or mobile phone, the hypothetical worker would need to find alternate methods of transport, information processing and communication. Technology short circuits this thinking by making the problems obsolete.
However, this reliance on technology does not necessarily preclude the creativity that marks the human species. The prior examples reveal that technology allows for convenience. The car, computer and phone all release additional time for people to live more efficiently. This efficiency does not preclude the need for humans to think for themselves. In fact, technology frees humanity to not only tackle new problems, but may itself create new issues that did not exist without technology. For example, the proliferation of automobiles has introduced a need for fuel conservation on a global scale. With increasing energy demands from emerging markets, global warming becomes a concern inconceivable to the horse-and-buggy generation. Likewise dependence on oil has created nation-states that are not dependent on taxation, allowing ruling parties to oppress minority groups such as women. Solutions to these complex problems require the unfettered imaginations of maverick scientists and politicians.
In contrast to the statement, we can even see how technology frees the human imagination. Consider how the digital revolution and the advent of the internet has allowed for an unprecedented exchange of ideas. WebMD, a popular internet portal for medical information, permits patients to self research symptoms for a more informed doctor visit. This exercise opens pathways of thinking that were previously closed off to the medical layman. With increased interdisciplinary interactions, inspiration can arrive from the most surprising corners. Jeffrey Sachs, one of the architects of the UN Millenium Development Goals, based his ideas on emergency care triage techniques. The unlikely marriage of economics and medicine has healed tense, hyperinflation environments from South America to Eastern Europe.
This last example provides the most hope in how technology actually provides hope to the future of humanity. By increasing our reliance on technology, impossible goals can now be achieved. Consider how the late 20th century witnessed the complete elimination of smallpox. This disease had ravaged the human race since prehistorical days, and yet with the technology of vaccines, free thinking humans dared to imagine a world free of smallpox. Using technology, battle plans were drawn out, and smallpox was systematically targeted and eradicated.
Technology will always mark the human experience, from the discovery of fire to the implementation of nanotechnology. Given the history of the human race, there will be no limit to the number of problems, both new and old, for us to tackle. There is no need to retreat to a Luddite attitude to new things, but rather embrace a hopeful posture to the possibilities that technology provides for new avenues of human imagination.
Reader Commentary for Essay Response — Score 6
The author of this essay stakes out a clear and insightful position on the issue and follows the specific instructions by presenting reasons to support that position. The essay cogently argues that technology does not decrease our ability to think for ourselves, but merely provides "additional time for people to live more efficiently." In fact, the problems that have developed alongside the growth of technology (pollution, political unrest in oil-producing nations) actually call for more creative thinking, not less.
In further examples, the essay shows how technology allows for the linking of ideas that may never have been connected in the past (like medicine and economic models), pushing people to think in new ways. Examples are persuasive and fully developed; reasoning is logically sound and well supported.
Ideas in the essay are connected logically, with effective transitions used both between paragraphs ("However" or "In contrast to the statement") and within paragraphs. Sentence structure is varied and complex and the essay clearly demonstrates facility with the "conventions of standard written English (i.e., grammar, usage and mechanics)," with only minor errors appearing. Thus, this essay meets all the requirements for receiving a top score, a 6.
Essay Response — Score 5
Surely many of us have expressed the following sentiment, or some variation on it, during our daily commutes to work: "People are getting so stupid these days!" Surrounded as we are by striding and strident automatons with cell phones glued to their ears, PDA's gripped in their palms, and omniscient, omnipresent CNN gleaming in their eyeballs, it's tempting to believe that technology has isolated and infantilized us, essentally transforming us into dependent, conformist morons best equipped to sideswip one another in our SUV's.
Furthermore, hanging around with the younger, pre-commute generation, whom tech-seems to have rendered lethal, is even less reassuring. With "Teen People" style trends shooting through the air from tiger-striped PDA to zebra-striped PDA, and with the latest starlet gossip zipping from juicy Blackberry to teeny, turbo-charged cell phone, technology seems to support young people's worst tendencies to follow the crowd. Indeed, they have seemingly evolved into intergalactic conformity police. After all, today's tech-aided teens are, courtesy of authentic, hands-on video games, literally trained to kill; courtesy of chat and instant text messaging, they have their own language; they even have tiny cameras to efficiently photo document your fashion blunders! Is this adolescence, or paparazzi terrorist training camp?
With all this evidence, it's easy to believe that tech trends and the incorporation of technological wizardry into our everyday lives have served mostly to enforce conformity, promote dependence, heighten consumers materialism, and generally create a culture that values self-absorption and personal entitlement over cooperation and collaboration.However, I argue that we are merely in the inchoate stages of learning to live with technology while still loving one another. After all, even given the examples provided earlier in this essay, it seems clear that technology hasn't impaired our thinking and problem-solving capacities. Certainly it has incapacitated our behaviour and manners; certainly our values have taken a severe blow. However, we are more efficient in our badness these days. We're effective worker bees of ineffectiveness!
If T\technology has so increased our senses of self-efficacy that we can become veritable agents of the awful, virtual CEO's of selfishness, certainly it can be beneficial. Harnessed correctly, technology can improve our ability to think and act for ourselves. The first challenge is to figure out how to provide technology users with some direly-needed direction.
Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
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2020-01-22 | pranav_kanth | 50 | view |
2020-01-17 | sefeliz | 58 | view |
2020-01-12 | shuocurity | 66 | view |
2020-01-05 | Mridul | 66 | view |
2019-12-31 | chrissyready | 66 | view |
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 736, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Likewise,
...able to the horse-and-buggy generation. Likewise dependence on oil has created nation-st...
^^^^^^^^
Line 16, column 94, Rule ID: ADVERB_WORD_ORDER[7]
Message: The adverb 'never' is usually put between 'have' and 'been'.
Suggestion: have never been
...llows for the linking of ideas that may never have been connected in the past like medicine and...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 18, column 362, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , &apos
...glish i.e., grammar, usage and mechanics,' with only minor errors appearing. Thus...
^^^^^^
Line 23, column 384, Rule ID: THE_SUPERLATIVE[2]
Message: A determiner is probably missing here: 'peoples the worst'.
Suggestion: peoples the worst
...hone, technology seems to support young peoples worst tendencies to follow the crowd. Indeed,...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 25, column 347, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: However
...ment over cooperation and collaboration.However, I argue that we are merely in the inch...
^^^^^^^
Line 25, column 572, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: hasn't
...s essay, it seems clear that technology hasnt impaired our thinking and problem-solvi...
^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['actually', 'but', 'first', 'furthermore', 'however', 'if', 'likewise', 'look', 'may', 'so', 'still', 'then', 'thus', 'well', 'while', 'after all', 'as to', 'for example', 'in contrast', 'in fact', 'such as', 'in contrast to']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.271088680606 0.240241500013 113% => OK
Verbs: 0.14924297044 0.157235817809 95% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0901225666907 0.0880659088768 102% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0483056957462 0.0497285424764 97% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0295602018745 0.0444667217837 66% => OK
Prepositions: 0.106705118962 0.12292977631 87% => OK
Participles: 0.0475847152127 0.0406280797675 117% => OK
Conjunctions: 3.18844368546 2.79330140395 114% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0346070656092 0.030933414821 112% => OK
Particles: 0.0028839221341 0.0016655270985 173% => OK
Determiners: 0.0886806056236 0.0997080785238 89% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0108147080029 0.0249443105267 43% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.015140591204 0.0148568991511 102% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 8098.0 2732.02544248 296% => OK
No of words: 1213.0 452.878318584 268% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 6.67600989283 6.0361032391 111% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.90153789571 4.58838876751 129% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.439406430338 0.366273622748 120% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.35943940643 0.280924506359 128% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.276999175598 0.200843997647 138% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.18713932399 0.132149295362 142% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.18844368546 2.79330140395 114% => OK
Unique words: 650.0 219.290929204 296% => Too many unique words.
Unique words percentage: 0.535861500412 0.48968727796 109% => OK
Word variations: 84.3208453694 55.4138127331 152% => OK
How many sentences: 56.0 20.6194690265 272% => Less sentences wanted.
Sentence length: 21.6607142857 23.380412469 93% => OK
Sentence length SD: 93.9109553687 59.4972553346 158% => OK
Chars per sentence: 144.607142857 141.124799967 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6607142857 23.380412469 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.392857142857 0.674092028746 58% => OK
Paragraphs: 15.0 4.94800884956 303% => There are something wrong with the essay format.
Language errors: 6.0 5.21349557522 115% => OK
Readability: 57.6046549287 51.4728631049 112% => OK
Elegance: 1.87301587302 1.64882698954 114% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.566433174185 0.391690518653 145% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.0744510563684 0.123202303941 60% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0648784234842 0.077325440228 84% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.508440693831 0.547984918172 93% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.199099712644 0.149214159877 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.173376489418 0.161403998019 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0934472083528 0.0892212321368 105% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.266385001772 0.385218514788 69% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.148451518471 0.0692045440612 215% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.281849544369 0.275328986314 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.128654139634 0.0653680567796 197% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 36.0 10.4325221239 345% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 5.30420353982 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.88274336283 205% => Less neutral sentences wanted.
Positive topic words: 24.0 7.22455752212 332% => OK
Negative topic words: 7.0 3.66592920354 191% => OK
Neutral topic words: 5.0 2.70907079646 185% => OK
Total topic words: 36.0 13.5995575221 265% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Less content wanted. Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 79.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.75 Out of 6
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Note: This is not the final score. The e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.