Technology plays a critical role in complementing the existence of the modern society. From learning, travelling, communication to even aspects such as entertainment and cleaning, technology has proliferated in every sphere of human life. The dependence on technology in the modern is motivated by the fact that it has a way of making life easier, and creating a platform for things that seemed impossible a century ago to be done with ease. In her analysis on the use of technology in a learning environment, Davidson observes that: it helps create an environment where learners can interact with each other, thus promoting creativity (51). On the other hand, through her analysis on the impact of media on society, Nelson acknowledges that: technology has desensitised the society towards violence and gory images (300). This paper explores the positive and negative aspects of technology as is portrayed in the articles, “Great to watch” by Maggie Nelson, and “Project classroom makeover” by Cathy Davidson. Notably, technology is not only making life easier but is also transforming the different aspects of society both in a positive and negative way.
技术在补充现代社会的存在方面起着至关重要的作用。从学习、旅行、交流到娱乐和清洁等各个方面，技术已经扩散到人类生活的各个领域。现代社会对技术的依赖源于这样一个事实：它有一种让生活更轻松的方式，并为一个世纪前似乎不可能轻松完成的事情创造了一个平台。在她对学习环境中使用技术的分析中，戴维森观察到：它有助于创造一个学习者可以相互交流的环境，从而促进创造力（51）。另一方面，通过她对媒体对社会影响的分析，Nelson承认：技术使社会对暴力和血腥图像失去了敏感性（300）。本文探讨了技术的积极和消极方面，如Maggie Nelson的文章“值得关注”和Cathy Davidson的文章“项目教室改造”所述。值得注意的是，技术不仅使生活变得更容易，而且还以积极和消极的方式改变着社会的各个方面。
The analysis of both Nelson’s and Davidson’s articles reveal that technology has both positive and negative aspects. To begin with, Nelson points: in her article that one of the positive aspects of technology in the modern world is its ability to enhance the fight against aspects such as drug trafficking and illegal immigrants (303). This is particularly the case for United States, which faces challenges of illegal immigrants and drug trafficking that originate from Mexico. In addition to this, Nelson points out that technology could be used to bring negative aspects of society such as sexual harassment and human rights abuses among others, thus enabling the society to shame the perpetrators (303). On her part, Davidson argues that: technology plays a critical role in promoting collaboration in society among different interest groups and as such, it creates a platform for sharing of knowledge and ideas (50). In the same line of thought, it enhances the outsourcing of projects both by individuals and organisations to “crowds”, that is crowdsourcing, thus allowing them to achieve quality services at a cheaper cost. With regard to an educational setting, Davidson emphasises that: technology plays a critical role in promoting creativity among learners (51). To justify her argument, she notes that by allowing students to use the iPod in any way they liked for educational purposes, Duke University noted that students came up with innovative ways to use the gadget to enhance their learning in a way that had not been imagined before. Thus, the two authors agree that technology has positive aspects in almost every sphere of life.
Nelson和Davidson的文章分析表明，技术既有积极的一面，也有消极的一面。首先，Nelson指出：在她的文章中，现代世界技术的一个积极方面是其增强打击贩毒和非法移民等方面的能力（303）。美国尤其如此，它面临来自墨西哥的非法移民和毒品贩运的挑战。除此之外，Nelson指出，技术还可用于带来社会的负面影响，如性骚扰和侵犯人权等，从而使社会能够羞辱犯罪者（303）。就戴维森而言，她认为：技术在促进不同利益群体之间的社会协作方面起着关键作用，因此，它为知识和想法的共享创造了一个平台（50）。按照同样的思路，它促进了个人和组织将项目外包给“群体”，即众包，从而使他们能够以更低的成本获得优质服务。关于教育环境，戴维森强调：技术在促进学习者的创造力方面起着关键作用（51）。为了证明她的论点，她指出，杜克大学允许学生以任何他们喜欢的方式出于教育目的使用iPod，学生们想出了创新的方法来使用iPod，以一种前所未有的方式提高他们的学习能力。因此，两位作者一致认为，技术在生活的几乎每个领域都有积极的方面。
Whereas this is the case, both Nelson and Davidson agree that despite its positive aspect, technology has negative aspects too. To begin with, one of the issues that Nelson points out: regarding the negative aspects of technology is the fact that despite providing a channel for interconnectivity among people, it eliminates the formation of true relationship between people(309). In this regard, Nelson acknowledges that: whereas technology provides a “magic trick” to connect people together, it lacks the ability to glue people together(309). Similarly, Nelson notes that due such disconnection, people have become desensitised as result they glorify things like barbarity, gory and violence. In this case, technology disconnects people’s feelings towards the evils things that happen in society, thus turning such evil into some form of entertainment.
尽管如此，纳尔逊和戴维森都同意，尽管技术有积极的一面，但也有消极的一面。首先，Nelson指出的一个问题是：关于技术的消极方面，尽管提供了人与人之间互联的渠道，但它消除了人与人之间真正关系的形成（309）。在这方面，Nelson承认：虽然技术提供了一种将人们联系在一起的“魔术”，但它缺乏将人们粘合在一起的能力（309）。同样，Nelson指出，由于这种脱节，人们变得麻木，因为他们美化野蛮、血腥和暴力。在这种情况下，技术切断了人们对社会上发生的邪恶事物的感情，从而将这种邪恶转化为某种形式的娱乐。