Technology in Today's World

        After much debate with myself, I've decided I too agree with Albert Einstein. Lack of human interaction is only going to harm us in almost every imaginable aspect. Technology is a wonderful amazing tool that helps us to learn and grow through change, however it has a dark side! So let's talk, for example; a conversation. A conversation can take place in many different methods: person, phone, text or email etc.. All of these have different valuable benefits and deficits. Technology has allowed us the ability to connect or disconnect with the entirety of the world anytime we please. This is good and bad, we can just "shut off" things that bother us rather than learning to deal with our feelings and emotions in a situation.We can speak to one another over the computer providing immediate access to others and their knowledge and ways of life. Great, however what are we losing if we're constantly engaged in technology? The video's we watched clearly showed how a family loses communication through a generation or by just lack of sharing and engaging with one another emotionally, socially and physically. Throughout these generations we are seeing a loss of skill sets from our elders, partly because technology has made so many advancements.We see more and more people in our eldest generations picking up technology because they "have to" in order to communicate such as medically, and others because they too want to benefit from the ease it can often create for those house bound or unable to access services through other methods. This has created newly gained valuable skill sets in utilizing technology no matter our age. However, what happens when the computer that "knows how" breaks or malfunctions? Or maybe laziness sets in through our overuse of technologies like Amazon's Alexa or Siri etc... making it easier without learning the actual skill. We are seeing huge responses to technology in the form of wanting it easier or faster and sometimes both! Engaging and communicating with one another is the very heart of learning even when we're implementing technology. From an educational standpoint, technology has been greatly embraced as an asset for learning. We need balance and moderation with technology. It allows us to enlighten our students and explore everything on a larger scale educationally with vast new opportunities for insight and education. For example; we can see and learn about any part of the world online at the click of a button, even learn a new languge. However since we all learn differently, will we fail some students by not learning hands on, thereby not creating a clear understanding? These are the questions I ask myself as a future teacher. I want to be able to excite my students, but I also want to see them learn by doing through trial and error with their own thoughts and  interpretations. Technology has given us the benefit as teachers to better inform our parents and guardians. We can also collaborate and coordinate with other professionals mostly to our schools' advantage in this age of advanced technology, with things like assistive technologies for students with disabilities, giving them enhanced differentiated educational opportunities where there were none before. Nothing has better benefited from technology than our medical field and industry. Medicine has made great advances with technology. We can see inside a person's body with imaging before cutting someone open, test for genetic deficiencies before birth like Down's Syndrome, run blood tests by finger pricks, we can help combat or heal disease through vaccinations. These are amazing strides to better health for all. But at what great cost, do we desire genetically altered children? This is an ethical issue at best. If we are all alike how will we work as a team making our world a better place for all. We also don't know all the potential long term effects of chemicals and medicines "created" through the use of technology.
          The fact of technology is that we can see great advantages and disadvantages with it in both the short and long term. It is giving many of us more time in our health and connecting with others, while also making fun new inventions like gravity shoes and instant warm coffee, but it is taking over our future by removing much needed human interactions, jobs and resources available. Does everything we do need to have a bigger, better, faster mentality that technology provides us? Computers who order for us, but allow vulnerability to personal information creating safety issues and worries, the ability to hand pick clothes and even babies? I know for me, I want to see technology be used "for good" to benefit people in growing and learning through change and advances, but not to see it replace our way of living and the balanced life with nature that God gave us.