Technology continues to shape not only the institutions in the 21st century but also the society as a whole. In her article, Project class makeover, Cathy Davidson observes that technology plays an instrumental role in transforming the modern day class environment, thus enhancing the learning experience of students. In this regards, Davidson promote the need for learning institutions to find ways of integrating technology in their environment since it helps improve the creativity and innovative levels of students, thus improving their performance levels. Whereas this is the case, Maggie Nelson argues in her article, Great to watch, that technology has a negative impact on society since it encourages people to become insensitive to violence due to too much exposure to violence and torture images from different parts of the globe. Thus, she notes that as a result of becoming too insensitive to violence, people in society are likely to promote violence and unwilling to condemn this vice. On her part, Jean Twenge, in her article, An army of one: me, reiterates that whereas the baby boomers and the previous generations promoted collectivism in society, the modern society and particularly Generation X promotes a self-focus. In others, the current generation continues to focus more on the needs of the individual rather than the needs of the larger society as a whole, and as such, it is perceived as selfish. Speaking from this point of view, an analysis of the three articles reveals that the identity of the modern society is fast going through a significant transformation. In this case, technology and the media is creating a selfish and narcissist society that care more about the self, and has no regard for the larger society.
技术不仅继续塑造着21世纪的制度，而且还塑造着整个社会。Cathy Davidson在她的文章《项目课堂改造》中指出，技术在改变现代课堂环境中起着重要作用，从而提高了学生的学习体验。在这方面，戴维森鼓励学习机构寻找将技术融入其环境的方法，因为它有助于提高学生的创造力和创新水平，从而提高他们的表现水平。玛吉·纳尔逊在她的文章《值得关注》中指出，事实就是如此，技术对社会产生了负面影响，因为它鼓励人们对暴力变得麻木不仁，因为太多地接触来自世界各地的暴力和酷刑图像。因此，她指出，由于对暴力过于麻木不仁，社会上的人们很可能助长暴力，不愿意谴责这种恶习。Jean Twenge在她的文章《一个人的军队：我》中重申，婴儿潮一代和前几代人在社会上提倡集体主义，而现代社会，特别是X一代人提倡自我关注。在另一些，当代人继续更多地关注个人的需求，而不是整个大社会的需求，因此，他们被认为是自私的。从这个角度讲，对这三篇文章的分析表明，现代社会的身份正在迅速发生重大转变。在这种情况下，技术和媒体正在创造一个自私和自恋的社会，更加关注自我，而不考虑更大的社会。
Despite the fact that technology creates a platform for connectedness among people from different societies and cultural backgrounds, it is unable to create true relationship that helps promote a positive growth of the entire society. To begin with, Davidson promotes the need to integrate technology in a learning environment in order to enhance the way student learn. To support her arguments on the role of technology in a classroom environment, Davidson argues that its use encourage students to collaborate with each other during their learning process. In reference to the use of technologies such as iPod at Duke University, she notes, “Students who had grown up connected digitally gravitated to ways that the iPod could be used for collective learning…they turned the iPods into social media and networked their learning in ways we did not anticipate” (Davidson 52). Whereas this is the case, Nelson points out that due to the proliferation of technology and media in the modern society, people are becoming more individualistic, and as such, they are likely to promote their own interests irrespective of whether such interests hurt others in society or not. For example, she notes that in a certain reality television show, participants were told to administer electric shocks to other participants. In this regard, it emerged that “sixty-four of the eighty contestants were willing to deliver shocks that could have killed their participants had there been any actual receivers” (Nelson 302). In such a case, it emerges that the media and technology promotes an attitude of self-satisfaction despite the fact that the cost of achieving this level of satisfaction could be detrimental to others. Therefore, whereas Nelson does not dispute the argument that technology as well as the media enhances interconnectivity among people in the larger society, she affirms in her article that there is a growing level of insensitivity among people towards other to the point that one may event hurt others and just it with self-satisfaction arguments. Moreover, due to much exposure to violent movies and gory images in news, the people’s minds have been transformed in such a way that they no longer see such violence as happening to actual people. Therefore, in such cases, violence against others may be perceived as a way of entertainment.
尽管技术为来自不同社会和文化背景的人之间的联系创造了一个平台，但它无法创造有助于促进整个社会积极发展的真正关系。首先，戴维森提倡在学习环境中整合技术，以提高学生的学习方式。为了支持她关于技术在课堂环境中的作用的观点，戴维森认为，技术的使用鼓励学生在学习过程中相互协作。关于杜克大学iPod等技术的使用，她指出，“那些在数字连接中长大的学生被iPod用于集体学习的方式所吸引……他们将iPod转变为社交媒体，并以我们意想不到的方式将他们的学习网络化”（戴维森52）。鉴于这种情况，Nelson指出，由于现代社会中技术和媒体的扩散，人们变得更加个人化，因此，他们可能会促进自己的利益，而不管这些利益是否会伤害社会中的其他人。例如，她指出，在某个真人秀节目中，参与者被告知对其他参与者实施电击。在这方面，出现了“80名参赛者中有64人愿意进行电击，如果有任何实际接受者的话，这些电击可能会杀死他们的参赛者”（Nelson 302）。在这种情况下，媒体和技术促进了一种自我满足的态度，尽管实现这种满足的成本可能对其他人有害。因此，尽管Nelson对技术和媒体增强了更大社会中人们之间的相互联系这一论点没有异议，但她在文章中确认，人们对他人的不敏感程度越来越高，以至于一个人可能会伤害他人，并用自满的论点来证明这一点。此外，由于大量接触暴力电影和新闻中的血淋淋的画面，人们的思想已经发生了转变，不再认为这种暴力发生在真实的人身上。因此，在这种情况下，对他人的暴力行为可能被视为一种娱乐方式。