Writing Feedback / GRE - technology deteriors our critical thinking abilities - feedback/grading [2]

As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.

[Stand: Proponent]

Although technology has given us great comfort and amenities in our daily lives, its rapid advancement is also regressing societal evolution by providing easy solutions to problems, thus preventing people from developing their own intellectual faculties. In media, the easy access to information has increased people's reliance on abridged newsfeeds making people more susceptible to malicious incitation. In business, the advent of information management systems integrating market information has enabled the centralization of decision-making process to a few individuals, as a result, amplifying the financial magnitude and scope of moral hazard. Finally, in the words of Winston Churchill, "Victory will never be found by taking the line of least resistance," personal growth is often the result of adversity. Technology usage could therefore deprive us of the stimulation and pressure necessary for developing our own mental capacity.

First, technological enhancement in the ways we share information and socialize deters people from fact checking magnify human errors and intensify social problems. As an inadvertent success of a college gossip application turn momentous global networking sensation, Facebook is esteemed to be the epitome of the best fusion of creativity, practicality, and technology. However, behind the glamorous ideal of sharing happiness among friends are perturbing social and psychological implications to its users. Many may argue that this ease of broadcasting and sharing of opinions increase the efficiency for the freedom of debate, but this benefit must be qualified by the fact that not all people are mature enough or can afford the time to think critically given the information updated by their trusted friends. That is, a reliance on Facebook to feed facts according to friends could orchestra embarrassments such as the recent incident where tens and thousands of official pages of organizations updated the news that Morgan Freeman is deceased without substantiated evidence, only to apologize later to the celebrity and fans causing grief damage to the organizations' credence; or in the extreme case, the social media platform that facilitates the instigation of an increase in teen depression culminating to a hype of Facebook-bully related teen suicide. In essence, Facebook has technologically enabled unverified malicious comments and bullying remarks to migrate from playgrounds to cyberspace, where nothing's forgotten. Thus, people should exercise extra care when it comes to generating, processing, and acting on information supplied by such platforms.

Second, businesses increasing rely on management programs such as algorithmic trading, which is preventing business leaders from justifying business decisions based on economic acumen and actively respond to fluid market and interpersonal information. This cripples organic organizational growth and lightens accountability from business leaders making their business more vulnerable to technical error and the leaders themselves more prone to behave immorally. In the case of Knight Capital Group, who was the largest trader in U.S. equities, lost $440 million in 2010 due to a glitch of their high frequency algorithm trading software from an update, and in 2012 another disruption in the prices of 148 New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listed companies resulting in the vanishing of 75% of their equity value. The number of jobs and family houses lost as a consequence is monumental, and all of this is the result of a reliance on technology and a failure to manage public asset prudently by the few staffs employed by Knight Capital. Furthermore, while publicly the mistake is sourced to a glitch in the system, one must take this piece of information with caution because the level of expertise and genius involved in the development of software as well as the largess of the wealth at hand could easily induce anyone to profit from disguised manipulation. Even though technology-enabled enterprises that create centralized management systems have certainly improved productivity and minimized cost around the world, but technology fundamentally are amoral and are means to an end. They are explicitly programmed and are bounded human capabilities and lacking in human creativity, empathy, and intuition. Therefore, mistaking accuracy with sensibility and integrity is dangerous when it comes to making economic decisions, and managers and shareholders alike should learn from the failure of Knights Capital.

The previous cases have demonstrated that the reliance on technology to deliver and spread accurate, abridged, and valuable information has put our daily affairs in peril. Yet, it seems the popularity of Facebook and algorithmic trading remains uncontested. One of the main reasons is that they provide us with immediate gratification, which is always associated with a long-term cost. The deferred of gratification remain a key sign of personal growth, and the easy access to these gratifications enabled by technology is manifesting in stifled maturity development and character building in young children. The avoidance of calculator in grade school is a classical example to help students develop better math skills that are critical to their later academic success. Arithmetic help students build foundations in the basic mechanisms of logical reasoning, and the usage of calculator rob children of this exercise. It is widely accepted that students learn material better through struggle, much like the strength of muscles which needs to be built, and any short-cut is bound backfire. Hence, an over-reliance on technology is a form of cowardice that swindles us out of the ultimate fulfillment of earned merit.

Clearly, technology has been responsible for several downward spirals in aspects of our daily lives. In areas of media, relationship, business, and education, technology brews dependency and undermines critical thinking. Rather than unconditionally accept all that technology has provided us, we should remain prudent in employing different automated services with care, because ultimately, great friendship, love, wealth, and advancement in human intellectual abilities have prevailed independent of any technological intervention for a majority of humanity's existence.