ETHICS: THE IMPACTS OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE YOUTH AND THEIR MORAL VALUES
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Technological advancements have posed ethical questions from the issue of cloning to privacy and communication because as much as they make life easier and are indications of what humanity can achieve, they also beg the question “are we losing our humanity”? This issue has poised technology and religion against each other so that it is as though the more one edges towards the areas that depend on the tangible; what can be touched and felt and explained through empiricism, the more one deviates away from that which depends on belief and faith alone. Philosophers like Michel Foucault who are at the forefront of thinking and those at the helm of our present day telecommunications and social networkings like Mark Zukerberg and Bill Gates are all atheists. This buttresses the binary opposition we speak of.
Although it is a given that our generation known as the millenials have gained so much through technological advancements; albeit there have been more innovations within the past five years than there are within the past two thousand years, there are serious humanitarian issues being grappled with as a result of human dependency on these inventions. It is easier now to communicate with people who are miles away all at the same time without needing to take time and think about forming useful physical human relations with others. Young people on a bus no longer communicate with each other as the older generation used to. Against this background, we are setting out to delve into the ethical effects of technology on the youth, their moral values and their education.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The problems generated by technology on the moral values and education of the youth of today abound. A typical millennial is more interested in the opinions of his peers than never before. Social media platforms have initiated a habit of pretense in the circle of life of the youth. It exposes them to the flashness of life so that those who are unable to gain these luxuries at the moment do anything to get them or fake having them thereby making them to live on a pretentious foundation. These social media platforms celebrate people with questionable sources of wealth than those with high moral values. What counts are followers and how many people follow one. Consequently, these uninformed and misinformed young people do everything to stand out including lowering their moral values, dressing extremely indecently. The technological developments that aimed at bringing the world closer and together to connect better has thereby alienated he world especially the youth and the shallow competition we mentioned earlier consequently increase the rate of sexuality among them as sex sells more than anything from the musical videos to their prized TV reality shows where the morally depraved are celebrated. With sex being peddled through technology, pregnancies and STDs are on the rise. Of course, they run to technology to provide them with answers and the online pages on google whose major interest is to draw traffic to their websites suffuse them with the wrong information and education.
This research aims at discussing at length, these ethical questions raised by technological effect on the youth’s moral values and education.
1.3 Research Questions
The research question which has called forth this present work is the inquiry into the ethical effect of technology on the youth generally. They include:
- Does technological advancements effect the youth’s moral values negatively?
- To what extent are these humanitarian issues
- At what point does innovation encroach mortality.
