In the olden days, the way students learnt was not the same as the way the modern students do it today. In the past, students faced many difficulties to do researches, paper works, tasks or even assessments as there was no technologies at that time. Technologies for instance, smartphones, computers, internet, search engines such as google, and etc. Students in the older era need to learn and how to do everything manually without any help from others, especially technology that might be very helpful for them. They need to search all those data in the library, which is the only source that accessible and available for them, and they also need to rely on themselves to do the majority of thing that we usually do it in the internet, such as browsing for answers in the internet, or even doing the equation.
On the other hand, in comparison to the modern era, students nowadays are getting help from many inventions of technology that would make students life easier. With variety kind of technology right now, doing assignment is not so difficult anymore. Information can be founded in just a few minutes using the technology However, having too much help from technology may have severe effects, and one of it is making the students too dependent on the technology, and might lose their ability to think independently as how the older generation always do.
Apart from that, technologies and gadgets might help student in many kind of ways, but it will also bring harms to the students itself. Rather than making them more advance then the students back then, students nowadays are starting to get badly affected by the technology. Around 6% of students all around the world-approximately 182 million students experiencing dependence and addicted to technology (Woollaston, 2014).
Furthermore, the dependency and addiction to technology become so much worse than it already sounds like. Dependency and addiction of technology doesn’t always mean that it is for studying’s sake. For an instance, addiction to technology could also mean, that you are too attached with, let’s say, a video game. Some of the video games may promote violent acts, and if a student sees it continuously, it will affect its mentality sooner or later. It could lead to that student developing a violent mentality which also means mental disorder.
Moreover, the dependency and addiction doesn’t end here, it has way more negative impacts and one of them is the communication. People that live in the past has a very limited access to do communication, since only a few people could afford to bought handphone. Therefore, people found it difficult to communicate with each other, especially for students. But different from the modern era, everyone can afford to buy handphone because it is not a form of luxury anymore. Handphone become the daily needs of people around the world. Phone's manufacturers are now providing cheap handset with a sufficient application. As a result, many people are willing to buy phones to for communication needs. Communication is now easier and can be done anywhere with anyone within 24 hours.
However, despite of the of advanced technology that helps the communication across the world, people are most likely to misuse the technology. For example, people use it for other purposes, such as social media, more than using it for the right needs. Hence, rather than making people communicate more, it makes people distant with each other, though it indeed makes the communication easier with people from different part of the world.
In addition, although the communication become easier by the existence of technology, it might affect the relationship of an individual to the his/her family. This might be one of the biggest fear for parents if their children might prioritise the technology more than their relationship to the family. The existence of technology would cause student become addictive to what they like about the technology rather than spending time with family. As a result, they might become busier with the world of technology. Technology has the ability to be used to lessen stress and time-consuming tasks that steal precious moments away from the family (Williams, 2015). If this case happens to students’ life, relationship with the family will be very difficult to build up again because students are used to such kind of lifestyle (Wellman et al., 2008).
As we all know that technology not only has the negative side but also has their positive side which bring benefits for improving students’ life. With the help of technology, students can be independent learners. As an independent learner, students must understand the concept in order to make it easier for searching the data. Other advantage is students can easily get instant information and ideas for their studies. They can usually use the internet to read online news, educational articles or books, and many more to help them doing their daily tasks and gain more knowledge (Bhaskar, 2013).
Nowadays, school or universities use technologies to support the students for their studies. Technologies supports school academics in many ways, for example many modern schools use a projector in their classes to make the teacher or lecturer easier to explain the school subjects to the students. This is one of a substitute method of teaching that replace the writing on the whiteboard. With this method, the teacher or lecturer could use more time wisely.
Technology often gives educators the option of further differentiating their teaching, allowing students to work at their own pace (Restuccia, n.d.). As a result, student could become more confidence and more knowledgeable than the teachers. It means that students improved their knowledge by the using the technologies effectively and efficiently. Internet also provides many applications for students that are useful for their learning. For example, educational apps, search engines, videos, portable technologies and interactive activities provide students with a nearly endless supply of information and resources (Dhaka, 2016). On the other hand, technologies that include online communication via social media application would help students communicate with their friends outside the school environment or even around the world. Students can talk anytime, anywhere using their smartphones for 24 hours with their friends. But this doesn’t mean that students always need to rely on social media such as instant messages to talk with other people. They can choose other option like use the instant messages to make an appointment with friends to meet in certain places doing a study group or etc. Not only that, with the presence of technology, students are helped in moments of adversity which means at urgent times. In this case, the kind of technology is instant messaging that found in smartphones. For example, if there is one of family member is sick, they will find it out with the related family member by texting messages or contacting them as soon as possible.
Besides that, the existence of technology may assist students to solved their own problems and gaining more knowledge which is related to their life. It means that technology can help the students to work independent and critically to solve a complicated problem. Complicated problems related to the school subjects for example doing mathematics and physics exercise because these two subjects need calculation and logical thinking. On the other hand, students also can improve their time management because time is one of the most valuable things in the life. This is especially a great advancement for students because they can learn online if they are too busy to attend and keep up with everything in a college environment (McConnell, 2015). As long as they can show how they also “exhibited a significantly higher ability in demonstrating understanding of the problem and in identifying what needs to be known to solve the problem” (Lowther, 2007).
To conclude, in the past, technology is very limited. People need to do anything manually and everything needs process. In comparison to modern era, people nowadays highly depend on technologies to help their daily activities. Too much dependence on technology will can lead to addiction, especially for students. However, technology can be useful to help students in their educational as well as social life. For example, students can do their daily tasks like essays using the computers. Students also can communicate easily with their friends using instant messages in smartphones. In summary, technology not only gives a negative impact, but also has a positive impact to people, especially students. It depends on how an individual make use of the technology.