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In 2010, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad. For 90 minutes, he explained why the iPad was the best way to look at photos, take classes on iTunes, Facebook, listen to music, play games and navigate thousands of apps.

Jobs advocated that everyone should own an iPad. Why did he and other tech giants refuse to give their children an iPad? The answer is simple. All of these men have seen the dangers of technology firsthand.

Technology in itself isn’t morally good or bad until it’s wielded by the corporations that produce it for mass consumption. In 2017, technology has become an engine for addiction.

Most people do not understand that there are thousands of people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to get you to do away with any self regulation you have.

All addiction is produced largely by environment and circumstance. These tech giants know this.

Technology offers convenience, speed and automation, but its consequences are dangerous especially to children and teenagers.

There is no doubt that social media has completely shaped the brains of the current generation now referred to as the iGen.

The iGen has been so inundated with technology during their maturation its premises are interwoven into their cognitive and affect. Consequently, a large segment of the iGen has been molded into what is being labelled groupthink.

Recently a group of professors from Harvard, Yale and Princeton issued a letter to students at their universities. The purpose of the letter was to inform their students about a dangerous precedent that they perceived to be popular on campus. The professors believed that the students were losing their ability to think independently by not using the concepts of evidence and reason in their thinking.

These students are some of the best and brightest of their generation, and it’s appalling to think that this is the result of the digital revolution. We must ask the question, what type of society are we building?

Bill Sarnak

Harding

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