Technology: A double edged sword
In this contemporary world technology has become an indispensable part of our lives. It can be defined
as techniques or methods applied in a way to make our works easy or more efficient. But this
technology has not been a true friend to the mankind. As every coin has two faces so has this. We have
witnessed the benefits as well as repercussions of technology.
Going back to industrial revolution, the modern technology came to prevalence in Western world and
reduced the costs of manual labour. However the same technology led to disastrous world wars
involving nuclear attacks which caused myriad causalities. We brought modern technology to ease our
lives but we made our lives more trouble some. Not only this, the impact is profound on environment
too. We are witnessing unparalleled environmental crisis and climate change which is largely caused by
the indiscriminate use of modern technology and machines. Like we invented ACs, refrigerators, vehicles
to ease our lives but they have badly impacted all spheres of our lives be it environment, society or any
other.
Technology has also impacted our society as the labour intensive industries are turning into tech-driven
leading to loss of employment opportunities to people. This has been indicated by economic survey of
2019-20 as still 42℅ people depend on agriculture as their main source of livelihood because lack of
opportunities they get in industrial sector. With the coming of artificial intelligence, humans are being
replaced by robots in work arena for more efficiency and time reduction. However, if this AI is allowed
to replace humans at such a high rate then a time might come when robots will rule over humans .
Technology has also brought an ethical conundrum to all of us. We apply technology to bring out
various kinds of information which may or may not be ethical, thus undermining privacy of people.
In last decade social media has emerged as the most widely used platform for communication. However,
these platforms have been used many a times to propagate fake news, communal propaganda, hate
speeches instigating violence among different catses, religions, races and gender.
However despite these drawbacks, we can’t ignore the positive change the technology has brought to
us. The coming of print media during medieval times led to a new avenue of information and
communication which too had played a significant role in our country’s freedom struggle and in instilling
a sense of national identity. The coming of TVs, mobiles have made our communication more accessible
and quick. The coming of drones, GPS, computers, robotics, etc have impacted our security and
information works. Now we are better able to guard our borders and have also a good hold on our
internal security. Also, new technologies are coming to mitigate environmental crisis and pollution such
as air purifiers, bio-decomposers, bio-technology, etc. The evolution of technology and information have
opened new avenues for employment generation, can help in uplifting the living standards and made
the world a global village.
Thus, technology can benefit us in best way till we apply it cautiously and with good regulation. If left
un-regulated and un-attended, it can prove disastrous to the humankind and we have witnessed such
repercussions of technology. We need to remember that humans have brought this technology not
other way round. There must be a limit on the extent to which we should use technology. This is the age
of machines and new technology so we can’t be averse to it rather can be constructive in its use to
benefit most from it.
