Monday, June 3, 2013


Topic for the response: The 21st century has begun. What changes do you think this new century will bring? Use examples and details in your answer.

Name: Kim Ho-Sung A
ID: 131048

             As the 21st century goes on and as time passes humanity tends to develop. These developments can be advancements in energy use, scientific achievements, and economical growths. But as we strive for the higher goals of our lives we seem to fall behind. Humanity is losing their primitive functions like emotion or perception. This mainly connects with globalization achieved by technology. Therefore, I presume that the 21st century will bring a change by lighting up the start for the eradication of humanity’s emotions, lack of expressions, and the first to experience the negative aspects of flooding information.

       Smart phones are being readily used by countless people. We see that people are staring at their phones in subways or in the streets rather than communicating face to face. Humans communicate using various areas of our bodies such as a little flinch in the eyebrow, gestures, and tones of which we speak. We detect these verbal and nonverbal communications through our experiences and emotions. But the technological developments in social networks are blocking our capacity to flourish our primitive emotions. We communicate by chatting with our phones, using social networks rather than asking people directly. This limits the exchange of emotions among people. But the problem doesn't end here. The real problem lies within the effect of technology concerning children, the future of our race. Children are drawn to high-tech gadgets easily as they are like sponges absorbing any kind of information. The problem is there are too much noxious information and addiction. They cannot overcome the temptation of technology when they should be playing outside communicating with their friends. A research done by Stanford University suggests that children who spend a majority of their time online are less happy among their peers because of the social disconnection they feel. This suffocates children emotionally.

             Next, people are losing their own ways of expressing themselves. We express ourselves in order to change or to communicate. Our expressions and emotions are the source in which other individuals comprehend and try to send their ideas back at us. But in the 21st century we are laughing with our hands. We send texts to indicate that we are currently laughing like “kkk” when we should be smiling using our facial expressions.
This way of stopping our expressions, limits our potential for communication. Social life isn’t just about talking or sending messages. It’s about eye contact, a hand shake, and a smile. Another example of limited amount of expression is the use of cameras. Parents try to capture the moment by looking at their children using cameras. While they should be clapping and cheering for their children’s dance performances, parents are all holding their devices in front of their faces not expressing. The world has been brought close by technology, but it has also ripped apart humanity.

             Finally, information is increasing rapidly as the current devices are enabling people around the globe to communicate. We have access to a variety of information using the internet as a bridge. Flooding information can be interpreted as a positive thing, because it suggests an idea that we are developing. However, the concern is not for intellectual developments, but for emotional ones.
As we enhance our ideas and technology the question raises if the human race is able to follow the development as well. People are ignoring the human nature in order to develop their rationality with information. Because we are constantly shoving information inside our heads we are ignorant of our nature to feel emotions. In other words our heads are becoming bigger but our hearts are becoming smaller. We can never live without a heart.


             The new age of the 21st century may be an age of development. We constantly construct new things in order to enhance our ways of living. But as we go on we sometimes forget to look back. Our emotions are being turned into stone by social networks, lack of expressions, and flooding information. We say that the world is closer than ever before, but the absences in close human relationships are making us fall back.
Posted by Unknown On 1:23 PM 8 comments

8 comments:

  1. Hello!! This is Moses SeBeom Lee. I really enjoyed your essay. Your topic "emotion" made me remind a class that I take and you must know it aren't you?
    I was impressed about your clear explanation about why human race are getting less emotional and side effect of technology advance. I really liked your explanation contrasting real life communication and communication by device. They are definitely different. Sure. Another thing I liked is your description of "bigger head and smaller heart.". Actually I like metaphors and figurative expressions. They make the essay much impressive and easy to be understood. Those are really good.
    However, about your whole essay, you mentioned about how human race became unemotional. While reading your essay, I felt like it is criticism on the ongoing phenomenon. The side effect of technology seems to be your essay topic and I think it's quite off-topic. If I misunderstood or made some mistakes, I want your comment! Feel free to kick my criticism! KK

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. First, I thank you for your advice.

      Next, about your criticism I wish to illustrate a few points.
      1. You said that I mentioned about how the human race became unemotional. Yes, I did talk about emotions through out my whole essay. But I never said that humanity had already became unemotional. I stated that they will become unemotional going towards the future. This is only the start of the phenomenon.

      2. You also said that my essay was quite off-topic as you understood my topic as the side effect of technology. It is true that I focused on technology as technology is a leading factor towards the future. And we cannot deny the fact that technology is going to develop through out time. Looking back in the past we are advancing at a phenomenal rate. So rather than stating the obvious and because other people have already done lots of essays on that I tried to focus on the emotional side of humanity. Emotional changes does count as a change that could happen in the future. Doesn't it? Furthermore, compared to the past the human race have never been exposed to technology such as now. So it is a new change that would happen in the 21st century.

      Delete
  2. It was a good essay, and I was really pleasant to see how you demonstrated the extinction of emotions of human beings well. Moreover, your delicate illustration and lively examples helped me be more sympathetic to your arguments. On the other hand however, some of your contents looked overlapping each other, and too extreme to be accepted, so it would be much better if you work on generalizing your assertions. Generally, your stance was concrete and reasonable. Nice essay!!~ :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for your kind words~ I really appreciate it ^^

      The reason why you felt that my contents were overlapping is because they were actually all reasons for one change.

      It was all interrelated to emotion. However as I see the TOEFL topic it said 'changes' that the 21st century would bring. So I tried to remain with one major change as emotion and rewrote my essay. The rest of it are minor changes actually supporting the major change~

      So this was why you felt that my reasons were overlapping. But actually if you look closely, it's actually quite different!

      Emotions, Expressions, Flooding Information are three different things that you need to focus on while reading my essay~

      Thank you again for your advice~

      Delete
  3. Great essay and great points you made!

    Your usage of words and the flow of the essay are perfect!

    But there is a problem in this essay. The topic of the essay is to describe and write about the change and the consequences of the change. However, you mostly focus on how it is right now, and how this problem will proceed. I think you might eliminate some of the description of present day, and add more specific description of the future.

    It is really good that you focused on the point of human emotion not the superficial technological development. This shows that you have thought further more than the others! I appreciate your effort!

    Overall, good

    You are so good at writing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thank you for your kind words~~ ^^

      In order to predict the future I thought the understanding of the present was essential. But as the topic was predicting the future, adding some more predictions may have made this essay better.

      Thank you again for your kind words... ^^

      Delete
  4. Nice blog, thanks for sharing the information. I will come to look for update. Keep up the good work.

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    ReplyDelete
  5. That's really helpful for their part especially that they were trying to have a better way on running a certain matter for them to give students a better way of education than what they used to.

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