How New Technologies Affect Teenagers

Technology is a central part of human life in this day and age. Every aspect of human life nowadays dependent on the use of technology in one way or the other. From the basic applications like communication, travel and cooking to the complex ones like nuclear energy production and utilization, technology is here to stay. The use and application of technology nowadays is utilized by all the people who are privy to it regardless of age class or sex. This comes with several challenges to each of these different stratifications of people. Teenagers are usually exposed to technology to a wider degree than the rest of the populace. Concerning teenagers, how new technology affects teenagers is a widely considered topic. This as it appears is because teenagers are the recipients of most of the proposed technological advancements in present day. From the social media technological advancements to autonomous cars and space travel, it has been noted that technology is more geared towards the teenagers and their interaction with it.  This is considerably because the invention of new technology affects the lives of the youth now and in the future. For instance, it is noted that teenagers use social media more than adults. Such inventions as autonomous vehicles are also seen to be more accepted by the younger generations in comparison with the elderly.
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This paper will seek to investigate how new technology affects teenagers in the present and how it will affect their future life. By looking at previous studies on how new technology affects teenagers, this paper will investigate current trends in technology, past discoveries and their effects. This paper will also analyze the effect of new technology to teenagers and how it can be detrimental to their lives or the benefits it has to them. In a research article by Rosen, Lim, Felt, Carrier, Cheever, Lara-Ruiz, Mendoza and Rokkum, two issues were addressed in relation to the effect of technology and its use amongst teenagers. First, the effect of continuous use of technology on the eating habits of teenagers under investigation was looked into. Secondly, the research looked into the effects that the use of technology and media such as television had to the teenagers and preteenagers exercise patterns. The focus of this research was on preteens and teenagers and their parents in terms of their average health and the use of internet television and computer gaming. It is hypothesized that teenagers whose parents spend a lot of time in front of their screens and in the use of technology also resort to similar characters in the long run. It is also hypothesized that teenagers that spend time using technology often have no time for exercise which leads to obesity and ill health. The study was conducted amongst 1030 parents who were proposed by their children. These parents were questioned about their children’s health habits, internet usage and their exercise habits. They were also questioned about their own weight and exercise schedules and consequently their technology use. The results of this study proved the hypothesis right that the use of technology and media predicted ill health to teenagers and pre-teens over a period of time. It was discovered that 65 percent of the teenagers and 59 percent of their parents who used technology were obese, overweight and in ill health. It was also discovered that the use of technology among teenagers often derailed their exercise completely as most of their time would be used on their devices. Minimal or no time was used in active exercise by the teenagers. According to the research, only around 43% of the teenagers were found in the category of having exercised an hour a day or more. This confirmed the hypothesis that teenagers that used the internet and technology a lot barely have time for exercise. A limitation to the study is that it concentrates on a wide scope and does not centrally utilize the direct teenagers it seeks to study. Rather than interview the teenagers themselves and concentrate on the experiences of the teenagers, this study questions their habits from the point of view of their parents who are working most of the time. Another limitation of this study is that it gauges the teenagers and children according to the number of hours they spend on media and technology and its relation to the number of hours spent in exercise rather than the type of exercise done. This limits the study to the amount of time rather than the overall effect and importance of exercise. Technology is widespread more so amongst teenagers in most scenarios. In a research article by Madden, Lenhart, Duggan, Cortesi, and Gasser, two major questions were tackled. First, how many teens owned a mobile phone tablet or laptop was investigated. Second, how many teenagers accessed the internet from their mobile devices or tablets was also analyzed and questioned categorically. The focus of the study was to determine whether the use of cell phone technology and the internet had effectively increased amongst teenagers over time and who owned the devices used by the teenagers. It is hypothesized that internet usage amongst teenagers is on a fast rise and is higher when compared to adult internet use. It is also hypothesized that the use of cellphones amongst teenagers is rising with time. The survey was done with 802 teenagers aged 12-17 through telephone conversations. The results show that on average, 78 percent of teenagers use a cellphone with 47 percent of them actually owning the cellphones themselves. It was also noted that 74 percent of the teenagers accessed internet from their cellphones with 93 percent of teenagers having access to a computer and the internet at any particular moment. These results proved right the hypothesis that internet use is very popular amongst teenagers. It also proved the hypothesis that the ownership of cellphones and their use is very rampant amongst teenagers in the present day and age. A limitation to this study is that the interviews were done with teenagers over the phone where validity could not be determined. The information given was subject to doubt and dependent on the bias or truth of the respondent with no verification. Another limit to this study was that the calls made were random which necessarily means that the data acquired was relative to error and distortion. A research paper by Klauer, Guo, Simons-Morton, Ouimet, Lee, and Dingus, two issues were looked into categorically. First, the relationship between secondary tasks and the occurrence of accidents was investigated. Second, the rate of teenagers performing secondary tasks while driving and its relation to road accidents was also investigated. It is hypothesized that a lot of road crashes each day involve the driver using a mobile phone or a technological device while driving. This often leads to the driver loosing focus on the road which leads to accidents. It is also hypothesized that a lot of road incidents that involve teenagers are often caused because the teenager was performing secondary tasks while driving. This suggests that the possibility of a teenager getting involved in an accident is heightened by the advancements of technology, its portability and ease of use. For instance, the use of a cellphone to call or make a call during driving is said to be a major cause of accidents. The study sample was a group of 42 newly licensed drivers which consisted of 22 females and 20 males aged 16-18 years of age. The study was carried out with consideration to the prevalence of a secondary task before a crash and the lack of existent before a crash. A secondary study was done with 109 adults as a sample with 43 women and 66 men aged 18-72 participating. The results showed that the hypothesis that the occurrence of an accident was heightened due to secondary tasks was true. It also proved the hypothesis that teenagers were more prone to accidents because they were found to be performing secondary tasks during driving which often led to accidents. A limitation of this study is that it was done without the consideration of other factors that lead to accidents. Conditions such as weather, culpability of the other drivers during the accident and car issues were not effectively considered. Another limitation to this study is that it is not easily verifiable that the secondary tasks led to accidents. This is considering that it could not be predicted how the particular task that was being done led to the accident at the time it happened. Whenever teenagers handle new technology, they are prone to distraction from other tasks and lose focus on their surroundings. This is because their attention span shifts a lot in a few minutes. A research study by Narad, Garner, Brassell, Saxby, Antonini, O’Brien, Tamm, Matthews, and Epstein, sought to tackle two questions effectively. First, this paper questioned the effect of attention deficiency disorder on the possibility of occurrence of accidents during driving. Second it questioned the overall effect of adolescence, attention deficiency disorder and distracted driving when combined. It is hypothesized that technology and its use amongst teenagers excites the teenagers making them loose focus on what they are doing at the moment. It is also suggested that new things like technology interest teenagers much more than they can control making them lose control of their attention. The sample population was composed of 28 teenagers with attention deficiency disorder and 33 teenagers without the disorder all aged between 16-17 years old. The results of this research proved the hypothesis that technology excites teenagers a lot true as the teenagers using distractive technology were more prone to accidents than those without them. It also proved the hypothesis that new technology excites teenagers beyond their better choice true since even the teenagers with attention disorder had less accidents than those without the disorder but with technological gadgets. A limitation to this study is that it doesn’t reflect the true effect of road accidents since it was done in a controlled environment. This did not allow for the normal environment to be depicted as the test was simulated another limitation to this study is that it was not done in a long time as the simulation lasted 40 minutes. This distorts the facts that the test gives as attention spans may not survive longer. All these results show that new technology will affect the lives of teenagers in the positive and negative. These reviews can assist understand why teenagers are so affected by technology and how it will affect their future lives. Considering how the use of new technology is widespread amongst teenagers, its use can be applied carefully to ensure it has a positive effect on their lives.  It can be assumed that the incidences of road and automobile accidents that occur because of the use of new technological devices can be put under control by legislation or control mechanisms as noted from these five articles reviewed. Further researches can focus on the effects that adolescence as a stage of passage for teenagers has on the assimilation of teenagers to technological devices.