Argumentative Essay - Structure

Argumentative Essay - Structure

The term “Technostress” is something that I have been hearing very often recently. My parents are always complaining that I should get off my phone and have a normal conversation with them instead. It was my father who first introduced me to this very interesting word. He had seen a documentary with a very similar theme as the one for this assignment. I have to be honest and say that I find this assignment very interesting since it relates to the society that we currently live in. I personally believe that this 24/7 society is not good for us. I definitely think that there are some positive effects of it as well, but unfortunately the negative effects outweigh them. One thing that especially bothers me is that people seem to never put down their phones, including myself. For example, when I walk up the stairs to our classroom, the only thing I see is people staring down at their phones instead of having an actual conversation as before. This is something that I personally try to work on. I do my best to ask my friends questions about their life instead of wasting all my breaks on Facebook or Instagram

Another reason I believe we are too caught up in the digital world is that we care too much about what others think of you. Nowadays people judge you based on what you post on social media. I remember a few years ago, before Facebook was as popular as today, I spent so much more time with friends and family. I probably had around 10-15 friends on Facebook, but I hang out with at least 20-25 people. Today I have around 300 friends on Facebook, but I only spend time with five of them. I believe that we think that we get more friends through social and media and the new technology, but in reality it is quite the opposite.

I would also like to argue that it is bad for your personal health. This is where the term “Technostress” comes in. Some people actually get addicted to their different devices. They feel the need to have check their social media every five minutes, which latter on lead to stress because you are worrying too much about what is going on in the digital world instead of in your own life. I definitely agree with Marc Roby’s arguments in his post on “Realbuzz”. His argument is that we are losing sleep by living in this 24/7 society. A few years ago the average sleep, and also recommended sleep, was 8 hours.

However, today the average amount of sleep has decreased to 6 or 7 hours. This is obviously not good for us, I personally belong to this category. I used to sleep much more and better before I got an iPhone and my own laptop. Nowadays the last thing I do is to watch videos on YouTube and Facebook. I do this even though I am aware of how important sleep is and that you are not supposed to watch TV before you go to bed. That is why this 24/7 society is bad for your personal health as well. As I said in the introduction, my parents are always complaining that I spend too much on my phone at home. When it comes to family and the 24/7 society, I see both positive and negative effects. Of course it is not good that I am on my phone when we are having a family dinner at home. One place where I completely ignore my phone is at my grandparent’s house. I know that they are getting older, so I try to actually talk to them as much as I can. I hate to see people having dinner with their grandparent’s and at the same time they are on their phones. As Anthony Kidman argues in his article “Beware of technology in The Daily Telegraph, technology is unfortunately damaging our family relationships. This is not only because of the children, but also the parents. Kidman argues that parents are often too focused on their emails from work instead of their children. This would never happen if it was not so easy to access your email and other social media. The article was published in The Daily Telegraph July 10, 2011 by Caroline Markus.

In the end, although there are many positive sides with a 24/7 society, I still argue that it will hurt us in the long run. Young children need their parents to be present and not focused on replaying emails, and we younger people have to spend as much time as possible with our parents and grandparents before it is too late. Unfortunately, I believe we are going in the wrong direction, and to be honest, I am not sure how we could stop it because our subsistence technology is improving day by day.

Gustav Zachrisson 15Bab