Within the last 120 years, humans jumped from horse and buggies to rockets to Mars. Technology today drives everything we do, say, think and feel.
At first, technology engineered the automobile to give us speed to travel, then the phone to give communication over distances, and for the free spirits, airplanes gave us flight. Soon after, rockets to the moon, Mars and beyond.
In the last month, Sarah, a high school girl from Idaho asked me to write about the negative aspects of advanced technology. As I researched this column, it became dreadfully apparent that we do not control technology; it controls us. And, it’s destroying the planet on which we live.
In the past, 70 years since WWII, technology has caused more harm, more danger, more death, more destruction and more contamination of this planet than ever in the history of the human race. Additionally, it’s quickly driving us crazy emotionally, spiritually and socially.
Let start off with the obvious negatives of technology:
Since 1965, plastics overtook everything, and today, they pollute every piece of land, waterway and all the oceans around the world. Plastics float and sink in our oceans to the tune of 5.5 trillion pieces. Humans add 2.5 million 24/7. That technology kills millions of marine life and avian life around the planet 24/7. Worse, humans refuse to stop or do anything to change it or improve it. Plastics will prove the worse invention for the Natural World ever invented by humans.
Since 1950, humans created and continue to create more than 70,000 chemicals that they inject into the air, land and water 24/7. Point blank: we poison the nest that feeds us. We poison the foods that nourish us. We poison everything on this planet. Results range from bee colony collapse worldwide to massive cancers in humans around the globe. We’ve got Big Pharma companies spreading opioids that kill hundreds of thousands and addict millions, but they continue to produce and distribute their poisons.
Since 1904, the automobile took over the planet as to carbon exhaust on the ground, in the air and underwater. That technology slowly but surely strangles the planet’s ability to keep the oceans in PH balance, viable temperatures and workable living conditions for all marine life. In other words, human technology puts all living creatures on this planet at risk. Ultimately, it puts all humans at risk.
It is a fact that: whatever happens to plant and animal life on this planet, ultimately it will circle back on humanity. At this point, technology that allows humans to multiply at terrific speeds as we grow from 7.6 billion to 10.1 billion by 2050. We cause the extinction of over 100 species every single day of the year, i.e., 24/7. The famous Harvard biology Edward O. Wilson said, “Humanity at the current extinction rates very well could kill off 1/3 of all animal life by 2050.” It’s called the “Sixth Extinction Session.” Because technology allows us to travel fast, spread our poisons and cut away rain forests at over an acre per second globally 24/7, the animals cannot adapt fast enough. (Source: Animal Extinction rates by Dr. Norma Myers, Oxford University, UK, 40-year study)
Another nasty piece of technology: the microwave. It alters the foods that humans heat and then eat. For the cruelty of some very sick humans, they use it to cook live animals, just for fun. While you might enjoy a hot meal in seconds, that food you eat destroys the bacterium in your stomach that keeps your body healthy. More and more Americans suffer from gut issues because of the processed foods they eat and the microwaved foods they digest.
Another piece of technology: genetically modified organisms. Monsanto and Bayer now poison the crops we eat with glyphosates, but also genetically modify plants and fish into different kinds of DNA not compatible with anything on this planet. Monsanto infects the Natural World with GMO apples, soy, corn, fruits of all kinds, fish and vegetables. Those companies directly poison and destroy the pollinator bees that make all life on this planet possible. The CEO’s of those big corporations should be arrested, prosecuted and jailed for crimes against humanity and the Natural World. (this author’s opinion)
Negative Effects of Technology on Today’s Youth
Kid Sloxs said, “Today’s world is crammed with technology. Almost every family owns a computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet, television etc. All these make our lives easier. Originally created to serve faithfully to humanity, digital devices have also revealed their harmful impact on our lives. Many studies have concluded that our physical, social, and mental health suffers because of the excessive exposure to technology. Let’s discover the negative effects of technology on different aspects of our lives.”
The Smart Phone allows instant communication around the world, but it isolate and insulates countless millions of cell phone addicts that curl into its mesmerizing power to cut them off from social interaction. NPR reported that teenagers in America text 3,300 times a month. That’s over 110 messages a day! How on Earth can such addicted individuals learn social skills, study, eat, play and carry on normal life processes? Answer: they don’t! They suffer from cell phone addiction.
Additionally, cell phone texting while driving causes over 4,000 deaths annually, second only to alcohol related driving deaths.
Smart phones cause total disruption in a classroom, so much so, kids fail to learn the basics of their educational foundational building blocks.
Not to be outdone, cell phones cause millions of kids to live sedate lives slouched over in an easy chair which causes them to become obese. It creeps up on them, and suddenly, they’re fat. That situation causes enormous health risks for a lifetime and destroys-costs our health care system.
Cell phones cause mental and emotional consequences surfacing across the modern world. Those phones ‘rewire’ kids’ brains into unhealthy and oftentimes anti-social behaviors just now surfacing around America and the world.
Cell phones have given rise to 43,000 child-teen pornography sites in the USA as of 2019. That’s correct. Our children face tremendously graphic and sickening sexually explicit websites that destroy any kind of emotional-sexual balance in their youthful lives. I have no clue as to where that aspect of technology will end up.
So, as you can see, technology may have given us a washer-dryer, kitchen stove and air conditioning—but today, it’s giving us more consequences than anything every popped out of Pandora’s Box.
Part 2: Other consequences of technology as to this planet, the future and human beings.
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Frosty Wooldridge
Golden, CO
Population-Immigration-Environmental specialist: speaker at colleges, civic clubs, high schools and conferences
Facebook: Frosty Wooldridge
Facebook Adventure Page: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World
Www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com
Six continent world bicycle traveler
Speaker/writer/adventurer
Adventure book: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World
Frosty Wooldridge, six continent world bicycle traveler, Astoria, Oregon to Bar Harbor, Maine, 4,100 miles, 13 states, Canada, summer 2017, 100,000 feet of climbing:
