Technology raises many questions to society. Does it do more harm than good? Is the risk factor higher than the benefits? Is it worth the changes in society it is going to make in the future? Under many circumstances, technology has harmed society in a way that at this point there is no return for humanity. This is because of the state technology has put us in. Technology has touched the whole world and everyone in it. It has led to a lot of destruction, for example: texting and driving, fake identity, and cyber bullying which then leads to suicides. Technological advances have lead to social media, which has led to people becoming incoherently disrespectful, unaware of how bad their social skills are, takes away our curiosity and innovation, and uncontrollable identity crisis issues. I am looking for who these events affect the most.

Now this leads me to the million-dollar question, how is technology affecting students on college campuses, and to what extent? It affects these students in so many ways that I have witnessed first hand. One of my teammates is completely and utterly consumed in her phone all of the time. It keeps her from being a part of the team because of it. She has isolated herself in a way that no one wants to be around her. This is only one of the many experiences I have had with students and their technology. People already assume that technology/social media affects student's school work and lives but they really do not know why, how, or in what ways. I am here to show and tell you.

There is an accurate and interesting article written by Brian Harke published by Huffington Post on June 14, 2011 titled "Is Social Media Making Us Anti-Social?" discussing the negative affects that technology has had on students and their social skills. The author uses his own personal experiences to prove to people that mobile devices and easily accessible technology is having a negative affect on this current and upcoming generation. He explains why and how he thinks it is bad for their future. He expresses how it is bad for their future by proving that they are not learning the proper manners and social skills that they need to be successful and have opportunities because of the bad habits they have created. His memorable personal experiences help back up his statements. Then the author goes on to show bias when he makes a huge assumption in the fact that all college students are like the one he is describing in his article. He thinks that they are all distracted or "not present" because of the access to technology at anytime. Unfortunately, when someone has this many bad experiences with students on their mobile devices, they end up expecting this behavior from college students which is unfortunate because we don't cease to prove them wrong.

Ian Leslie's article "Google Makes us all Dumber" posted and published in Salon magazine on October 14 claims that Google is taking away one of the most important things to innovation: curiosity. He proves this by explaining as knowledge continues accumulating on the internet with answers on deck for everyone and anyone to access it at any given time, we are not in a position to ask questions. It takes us longer to acquire the information because of how much statistics and data that has been accumulating over the years. The author's bias lies in the fact that technology is negatively affecting the future of America, and the future of America are current college students. The author values letting human minds articulate and compile information and questions by ourselves, and he think that the internet is destroying that for people. He also believes in and preaches the "information gap". (p. 499) The information gap is basically when you know almost 90% about something, and you begin to experience this itch or urgency to know more. This is one of his major values and he thinks that this generation is not experiencing the things that he feels are the most important things for humanity to excel. Students need to be aware of this deficit technology is potentially or has already created for us and become more innovated and self-dependent.

In Abhishek Karadkar's article "The Impact of Social Media on Student Life" published in The Technician on September 13, 2015, she explains why students love spending time socializing. She makes several valid points that every college student would agree with, like social media gives people the freedom to say whatever they want whenever they want to. She also clarifies that students not only get to say what they want but they get to talk to/meet whoever, and they get to comment on everyone's lives behind the scenes. She is (like the other article authors) very bias toward the negative affect social media and accessible technology has had on students. She states that one of the biggest problems it has caused on campuses are the constant identity crisis issues. People hide behind social media and present/pretend to be someone that they are not and a great example of this would be when people Catfish. She goes on to say what the other authors are trying to get at which is that social media can lead to addictions that leads to bad habits.

My research question is feasible because you can easily see the positive aspects of social media. It is obvious that many people throughout campus connect online. If I did not have my team and immediately have my own group who accepted and could relate to me I would have felt really lost and felt the need to reply on social media to help aid me in meeting people. No one from where I lived came to USC so I would have relied on the Facebook page for the class of 2015 to help me meet people. In a lot of cases it does help people connect but its so easy to hide behind your phone and computer instead of getting out there yourself and being hands on.

All in all, it is still a problem that needs to be addressed even though there are some positives in rare cases, it doesn't outweigh the damages technology does to students. The upcoming generation needs to work hard on their social skills because they have grown up with the advanced technology assets and are not aware of the harm they are doing. This generation needs to recognize that the people who have already come up with the current technology did not grow up like we did, so our generation is going to have to take their place and become able to carry on the innovation. Lastly, they need to not get caught up in the social media addiction and bad habits because they can scar/haunt you for life. As students in this generation, we need to work hard to get out of the bad habits and lifestyle we have been born into in order to become productive ... and why you ask? We are the future.

