Is our reliance on technology making us lazy?

Mobile phones and iPads aside, it doesn’t seem like we have advanced too much over the past decade. Let’s face it, we aren’t living in the fantasy world that Marty McFly visited in ‘Back to the Future’. There may be no flying cars or holographic waiters as of yet, but compared to when I was a child, technology is advancing at a scarily fast pace, writes Abbie Dodson.

It’s the little things that have crept into our daily lives that we don’t seem to notice. It doesn’t seem too long ago when a virtual assistant was a concept seen only in sci-fi movies, but with the development of Amazon’s Echo Dots and Google Home devices, most families are graced by the ever-present Alexa or Siri.

Supermarkets are a great place to observe the progression of technology, as it integrates seamlessly into self-checkouts, Apple Pay, and online banking.

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Whilst these technological advancements may be minor and seem anything but threatening, they could threaten humans in a different way.

Are we becoming too reliant on technology? If we were to lose the internet and access to machines that have replaced manual labour, would we be able to adapt and cope, or have the age-old skills been lost in translation?

It’s so easy to consult Google for any issues that we forget the days of looking in books or having to research. For example, when I look at my search history, I am embarrassed to be presented by questions such as; ‘how many days until May 5’ and ‘how long should I reheat pizza for?’. It seems that technology has made us lazy, and I think that we are all guilty of this. We confide all our appointments and shopping lists into our technology, and it’s too easy to press a button and ‘let your mobile do it for you’.

What do you think? Are you concerned that driverless cars in the not-so-distant future, or do you welcome to progression of our handheld devices?

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In such hostile times, it’s difficult not to be sceptical when you consider just how much technology helps us in our everyday lives. Whether it’s checking your bank balance from the sofa or ordering food to your restaurant table from your phone, there are so many ways that we rely on technology.

Perhaps these are harmless developments made to simply ‘make life easier, but do we rely on such technology too much?