Date: 10/30/2012

EE-295: ASSIGNMENT #7 Sapana Parekh

SJSU ID: 006607523

Stivers explains merits and demerits of technology on the modern personality. He states that technology influences our emotions, opinions, experiences and consciousness. According to him, public opinions are generally out of context, represent fragmented facts and generally conveyed through mass media, on the other hand, he indicates that opinions tend to follow the desire that technologys promise unleashes and advertising presents to us. I agree with author, that if technology is used in the correct sense, it could have educational and informational purpose, otherwise it could mislead society. Technology is very powerful in whichever regard it is used. It can be used to mislead and manipulate things to gain ones interest. Author indicates that technology not only helps create personality type but also generates great amount of stress. Industrialization altered the natural rhythm of human existence, first at work, later at leisure, as people were forced to keep pace with the machine. Obviously the tempo of life is accelerating. The stress because of this decreases cognitive functioning and reduces tolerance for frustration, aggressiveness, helplessness, decreased sensitivity to others and withdrawal. The acceleration of family life has received less attention than that of work until fairly recently. The work has become more humanized and home has become more industrialized. There is no doubt about how technology has shortened time and space thereby allowing us to live and work ever more quickly. Not all of the speed is experienced as stress. But I also have to agree with author about the stress and its effect on ones life. To me, it feels that we live as machine and juggle with a lots of things and tasks at the same time. Moreover, if there are periods without stress, one feels that he is burden and not contributing to society instead of relishing freedom of not being involved in stressful activities. There are consequences of a faster tempo of life that borders on an experience of simultaneity. Like decline in memory, the quality of decisions suffers and a decline of pleasure. The stress that technology directly creates is qualitatively different from the kind it generates by indirectly making human relationships more abstract, impersonal, vague and competitive. The technological personality is not a stimulus shield to loneliness. All of us differ to the extent that our personalities resemble the technological personality. The individual whose personality is close to the technological personality simultaneously experiences less technological stress and more loneliness.