Research Analysis (Reflective) Essay

Research Analysis Essay

Sara Waldron

Honestly? Technology? What would be so great about researching something like that? What’s to research? This was my first reaction when my instructor for English 102 told the class that Technology was our research topic. To be honest, I had no idea what I would be able to research in regards to technology. I had never really thought about technology and all the problems that could come along with it. To me technology just seemed like a great invention that suddenly became popular to people all over the world. It was not only for things such as games, dvd players, and DVRs, but also for things in businesses such as computational technologies, xray machines, and copy machines. What more could you ask for out of technology?
As we started discussing technology in English 102 it really opened up my mind to new ideas and thoughts about technology. Maybe technology could actually be considered to be something that was not so good. When we began to read our first novel Cat’s Cradle, it really emphisized on the fact that many people don’t know if technology is good or bad. A scientist from the novel had invented this techology called Ice-nine that could freeze any person and turn them into stone. Now, could this technology be good or bad? Could it be beneficial or unbeneficial? As a student in college, who really thinks about these kinds of things about technology? Who wants to see the bad in it? I know I didn’t. The novel does a great job at presenting both sides of the good and bad of Ice-nine. Ice-nine could be considered good for things such as fighting or wars to freeze the enemy, but also could also be considered bad because it does freeze and turn people into stone, and could be considered dangerous.
David E. Nye also allows people’s minds to open up a little bit and see that there are two sides to every opinion or story. Nye’s book Technology Matters has a good amount of detail that discuss things about technology that could make it good or bad. There were so many topics in Nye’s book, I had no idea where to start with a question or how I would narrow down all the topics into the one that most interested me. I guess technology use more important to me than I had ever thought about.
English 102 really opened up a new door for me. It kind of inspired me, actually, because I think that I, and a lot of other students, don’t really involve themselves in anything that doesn’t apply to something in their own lives. I mean, think about it, I don’t think there was one student in my class that actually wanted to read Cat’s Cradle or Technology Matters. Who cares about ice-nine or what technology is all about? Technology is great for us students because it gives us a lot of the great things we “need” in our lives to survive. Ipods, Wii, computers, Blue Ray DVDs, the list will always go on. All students use these technologies almost weekly, if not daily. This proves my statement in saying that students, or anyone, really don’t notice things that aren’t literally presented right in front of their face. I would have never thought about my future based off technology if I hadn’t read the books and hadn’t started to realize what technology is capable of.
Coming into college for the first time was a really big wake up call for me. I had no idea how difficult it was going to be compared to high school. All the exercises I did in high school really seemed like a joke compared to all the work and studying you had to do in college. My first semester was a big struggle for me. I knew I really wanted to do really good in college because I felt that, even though I considered myself a great student in high school, I wanted to strive even higher in college, and challenge the best of my knowledge to the material presented in college. In thinking about technology, and all of the ideas I had for college and my future, the question finally hit me. Do I really want to work as hard as I can without even knowing if I am guarenteed to get a job in the work field that I wanted? Will techology really, eventually just take over all jobs and cause them to disappear? It is a crazy thought, but it’s something that I knew I had to learn more about. I think of myself as a hard working student, as kind of a perfectionist. I need everything to be perfect and can’t stop thinking about it if I don’t turn in a final paper that isn’t “perfect.” Since I care so much about school and am so in love with Psychology, I knew that I had to find the answer and research information about employment loss due to these technological uses.
After discovering my research question, it led me to ask myself even more questions about technology and jobs in the future. The economy is really bad right now. It is harder to get a job now, than it ever has been. My sister is graduating this year, and she is having the hardest time finding a job even had completed the education required for her major. Today, for the graduating students of 2009, there is a 5% chance that they will actually get a job. Additionally, the education expectations are rediculously high today than they ever have been, at least in my opinion. When I ask my parents about what kind of grades they had to get in order to get into a good college, they had much lower standards than now-a-days. Another question that was brought to mind, through this information was; will working hard in college, to get your major, really be worth it? If we will eventually lose or have no jobs for our majors, because of technology, then why do we have to work so hard to get that job? Even with a bad economy, based on how hard you’ve worked in college and your experiences in college to get your major, technology shouldn’t be the reason that you don’t get your desired job. In my opinion, businesses should see what you’ve done and how educated you are and should higher you based off of that. What about technology, though? Can it get in the way? If so, how will it get in the way? How has it started, already, to get in the way? What jobs has it taken over already, and what’s for the future of other jobs? These are the types of questions I really wanted to get answered in my research paper.
My college education and future job is really important to me. I really want to have a well paid job and be able to take care of my family. This is where the technology problem really struck me. This is why I wanted to find out more about it. I am not only concerned for myself, but for all college students’ futures. I want people to know what is at stake for their futures and I think it’s important to tell people about it. A lot of the other authors that wrote the technology books seemed to write about technology, but not really make it known that they had so many thoughts and so much information about technology. In thinking about it in a different way, as I said before, I don’t think people really noticed these sources because they didn’t really take the time to open their minds to new ideas and what see what kinds of things could interfere with their future career plans.
I was also concerned for the people who are already in these work forces that could lose their job or that have already lost their job because of technological use. I felt it necessary to put them in my paper because I believe that older adults should know about their futures and know what could happen if they don’t pay attention to small things, such as this. As I stated earlier, I want to get a good job so I can raise and take care of a good family, and, to me, the older adults are important to mention because of this specific factor. What are these older individuals going to do once these technologies take over their job and they can no longer take care of their families?
I have always been a caring person, and always like to help people when they are in trouble. This characteristic is also something that I think helped inspire me to write about technology unemployment. I really think that students or younger people can make a difference in people’s lives if they actually take the time to be heard. I will be honest, going into these english classes, the courses seem to make you do these “stupid” assignments that don’t seem to benefit the student at all. This is what I sometimes thought about the English 101 assignments and the English 102 assignements. I sometimes didn’t understand the point of the assignment or why someone would want to write about the things that we did, but in the end it all made sense. I realized I really enjoyed doing the assignments because I got something out of it. This is what I hope to do for my research paper. Maybe the person reading it will just think of it as a boring topic or not really want to read it, but I want to be able to really interest them in what I’m saying and want them to feel the same thing as I did, when I realized that the assignments and information I learned or read about in my english classes were truly inspiring and fun.
The thing I really enjoyed about doing the research paper is that I actually discovered more information about technology, and, obviously, my topic than I had wanted to. I remember getting really excited once I got a good start in writing my paper and actually engaging in the texts because the information was so interesting. It really inspired me to want to research more and discover more. I thought that my sources were good too. I used a good variety of books and articles. I wanted to use both because I think the books had a lot of good information and the articles seemed more up to date. It was also a benefit that all of the sources seemed to some how link to each other. Everytime I used one source, I could mention another source that related to the previous one. It was very helpful in proving points and allowed me to know that the information wasn’t just made up.
As I noticed in my English 101 class, and now my English 102 class, I really learned a lot out of both of them. When beginning English 102, I was amazed at how much I remembered from English 101 to use in my papers for English 102. I remember turning in my first paper thinking that it was one of the best papers I had ever writen because I used all of the knowledge I had learned from English 101 into that paper. Ironically, I got the paper back and it had a ton of comments on it and, what seemed to me, was now thought of by the instructor as a paper that could be much better. I remember getting frustrated a lot of the time because I thought I really did do a good job in writing my papers. There was even one time when my instructor printed out my paper and gave it to the class to review and discuss what could have added to make it a better paper. I was so embarrassed and, even though I never want that to happen again, I was kind of thankful, after a while, that my instructor did that because it allowed not only me, but the entire class to see the mistakes and how to do better on the next paper.
Based off my knowledge, English 101 seemed to be a class that taught you how to really give a lot of detail in your papers and to make sure you understand what author’s are trying to say so, eventually, you could do the same in your papers. English 102 went beyond that, and taught the students how to really dig deep in the texts to understand the detail of other writers. That would then allow the students to make up their own thoughts and opinions, based of their information, so they could get good information for their research papers. I think one of my favorite assignments from English 102, and what I thought to be extremely beneficial for my research paper, was the Annotated Bibliography assignment. That assignment was so valuable because it allowed the students to see if their sources were complete junk or if they were actually going to be helpful. I really think that my research paper has come a long way, and not just from writing a simple first draft, but from writing the smaller assignments in English 102. Without the English 102 assignments, my research paper, I believe, wouldn’t be as greatly done as I would have needed it needed to be.

Writing is All About Choices

When first writing this research paper, I found it hard to get all the information down in my paper in an orderly fashion. I felt like my sources had so much information and I just had trouble putting it all together, and making it look like something that would be beneficial to read or that would help my questions about technology in the work force. The group conferences really helped me in realizing what I needed to do in making my paper more successful. I looked over all the comments that the students and instructor gave me and really tried to meet their demands as far as making my paper better. I felt the comments to be highly helpful and really liked being able to hear another person's perspective of my paper was instead of just myself. The purpose of a rough draft is ultimately that it is going to be "rough" but I felt that their input really helped make my paper better than it had been. I also felt that all the comments that I got from my peers and instructor were positive comments. I reread my paper and thought it was absolutely horrible, but their comments made me feel better about it. I realized that it's not bad to have a bad start to the paper, as long as you keep revising and keep rereading the information and keep researching information to build and build into your paper.

The choice I made when I started revising my paper was that I had to meet all of the needs that my peers and instructors wanted me to have in my paper. I also decided that I wanted to dig deeper in the information and really get a good conversation going about my topic. I realize my revision isn't perfect right now, but I believe that if i constantly revise my paper and constantly catch my mistakes or discover new things that could make a better paper, it will honestly turn out to be a well developed research paper.

I really am excited for the research paper. After I revised my paper, I felt even more engaged in the texts than I had the first time, and really enjoyed reading about what others thought about my topic. It was interesting how much of a problem my technology topic really is to the society. This also helped my choices in revision because it allowed me to see that I really have to dig deep into the material to get the answers and get the information I need. I believe this, though, to be the fun part about the research paper, the actual RESEARCHING part is really intriguing.

My goal for this paper is to really get involved in my topic and the information based off my topic and really overachieve in this paper so it will hopefully be a passing, well done paper!

Research Paper - Part 1

I just want to let my group know that this is NOT what my final paper is going to look like. I found it difficult to get so many of my ideas and information all down and organized in the first draft (and in five pages) so sorry if this seems like a messed up first paper!
See you thursday!


Research Paper - Part 1

There will be a great employment decline and less job opportunities for college students all around the world if technology continue to interfer with the basic skill level of human beings. Technology has become so involved in the work force that people will eventually be replaced by these technologies in their jobs. Two of my biggest concerns are that, as me being one of those college students, I lose an opportunity for my desired job in the future due to advanced technologies. Even in sight that I might get a job, the use of technology is very high in all work forces and my second fear would be that I lose my basic skills to get the job done. In this paper, I will be discussing skill loss and job loss that have been caused due to technologies in the work force.
There has been debate on whether technology in the work force will provide a good outcome to our futures or a bad outcome. David E. Nye presents both issues in his book Technology Matters and gives detail about why each is considered good or bad.
“Tedious and dangerous factory work has been replaced by robots or automatic machines, while millions of people hold jobs that did not exits 150 years ago in industries created around new technologies, such as computing, musical recordking, broadcasting, design, advertising and research and development” (Nye: 109).
In this statement, Nye is saying that many jobs are indeed replacing the jobs of others due technolgies or “robots” in the work force, but also he states that technology isnt necessarily a bad thing in the work force because it presents new opportunities and working availabilities due to these advanced technologies. In my opinion, however, it still concerns me that my future career could be replaced by technologies. Sure, some technologies bring great things to the work force, but I believe they could eventually become an invention that takes over my job completely. It was further discussed in Nye’s novel that these machines or “robots” have been a problem for employment for over 200 years (119). Multiple machines have been constructed to perform our own human-like skills and eventually replaced jobs such as industries, telephone operators, and bank tellers (118). These are the kinds of things that worry me and should also worry many other individuals that are working for employment in college. If technology has slowly, yet surely, started to elimidate jobs one by one, there won’t be many jobs for these students to be involved in. Considering there are such high expectations or education in jobs I think technologies should be narrowed down to only be used for beneficial purposes and not all purposes. By beneficial purposes, I mean the work force should only use technologies that will benefit to their job and not take over their job. Things such as x-ray machines, cat scan machines, and computational machines that form helpful data for ill people at a hospital would be great beneficial technologies. These kinds of beneficial technologies help make our jobs easier by getting information for us quicker. They do not take away our jobs and cause unemployment in doing so.
Additionally, maybe employment won’t be taken away, but eventually a person’s ability to do simple things and simple tasks will disappear. Harold Hellman describe his concerns about the loss of skills due to technologies being used in the work force in Albert H. Teich’s novel Technology and Man’s Future. Hellman talks about how a friend eventually lost his ability to remember how to fix his car due to the fact that technology usually did it for him (25).
Additionally, Christian Heath and Paul Luff did a research study and presented it in their novel Technology in Action that engages in the technologies that are involved in the work place and then provide that information to their audiences so they understand the effects of technology in the work place. These authors actually go to work places and observe the workers in addition to video tapping their observations to share the information with other collegues. The authors observe how the social interactions change the skills of the working and their abilities to have face to face communication. The section of the book covers information to help researchers see that communication difficulties are starting to form due to technologies being used in that work place. Their main stakeholder for this research experiment were practitioners who want to learn about the new skills needed to attain their position in the work force but then end up having problems with their basic skills after using those technologies (Heath and Luff: 2). I think that both of these authors are really trying to tell their readers that technology is becoming more complex in the work force than people thought. As I thought, and many others might think, technology was considered great until you discover the downfalls of it, especially if it portakes in your future career. The stakeholders that were particularly aimed, in addition to the practitioners, were more so individuals that might be entering the work force such as college students and/or people in the work force now that might also have problems such as the practionors did in aquiring new skills.
In concerns of the research information Heath and Luff had gathered from the practitioners, Teich discusses the use of a simple machine known as the copy machine in saying that many people have them at work, but do not know how to use basic or common knowledge to use them (Teich:24). We have a fear of technology because it requires an uneasy amount of knowledge that many employers may not beable to aquire on the first, second, or even third time around (24). I believe that this is a common reason as to why technology causes unemployment. If many employees cannot work the technologies that are placed in their work forces, then why not just make a “robot” techological invention that can do the job. In stating this, another thought as to why many are losing their jobs could be the simple idea that owners or managers of a work force or facility want the best work possible and if humans aren’t able to do what they need them to do to get the job done, then they will find someone or something to get the job done no matter what or who it is.
Another reason that there has been great decline in employment due to technology is because of competition involved in the new technologies (Mittelhauser: 18). Multiple problems have evolved over the years involving a higher competition for companies due to the technological use in the work force (18). These problems come about due to the uses of technology in that specific company(18). It’s quite possible that companies have better technologies than others and, for that reason, companies being forced out of business because they can’t keep up with the more advanced technologies. This is also a concern to not only myself, but a concern to all college level students and the individuals that are in these kinds of textile or apparel factories because technology in the work force is now dealing with the quality of the technologies and how companies use them. Mark Mittelhauser states in his Job Loss and Survival Strategies in the Textile and Apparel Industries article that multiple jobs have been lost due to fierce domestic and international competition in businesses with textile mills and appearal factories (18). Mittelhauser believes that it is expect that textile and apparel workers are expected to lose jobs at an even faster rate thatn during the past decade (19). “The effects of trade and technology will combine to negatively effect the labor market for textile and apparel workers” (19). Additionally, the imports from trade will most likely supply net growth in the domestic market and will eventually lead to little or no growth in the textile markets (19). In stating this information, this leads me to believe that it is not only a concern that technologies cause job loss to individuals because they lose their ability to do basic skills, but people lose their jobs additionally because new technologies in the work force are too much for not only the employees, but also the companies themselves.
The future jobs of farmers, police officers, physicians, utility workers, salespeople, consultants, scientists, doctors, factory workers, pilots, and teachers are also at stake in regards to these kinds of new technologies in the work force. Andy Hines recognizes what is known to him as the “Big Four” or the four highly used technologies in these specific jobs. The big four include computer networks, imaging technology, massive data storage, and artificial intelligence (9). These “big four” are skills that many of these workers need to utilize to be able to have a greater impact on their futures and careers, however, if these technologies are not used wisely and correctly, they could lead to bad outcomes involving these technologies completely taking over the employee’s jobs. Hines bases his article not only on the “Big Four” but also on the information technologies, or better known as infotechs, of the work force and the future of those individuals that are currently employeed in these infotech careers. Hines states
“By the year 2010, information technology (infotech) will make many jobs more challenging and rewarding, but it may also lead to job loss, boredom, and depersonalization. Consisting primarily of computing combined with telecommunications and networking, infotech includes expert systems, imaging, automation, robotics, sensing technologies, and mechatronics” (9).
Many of us may see these technologies in this work area to be a benefit because it allows us to get information quicker and better, but Hines information seems to portray that, yes, these technologies are great for these jobs, but they will eventually take over these jobs completely because the technologies do so much in that work force for the employers (9).
Ultimately , technolgy is considered to be a highly greatful invention to all individuals who use it, but it is my concerns that people do not see the big picture as to what technology can really do to our world. Throughout this paper, I have discussed the effects on technology and how it has caused job loss and, if not, basic skills needed for use in the work force. Technology is slowly changing the world for college students who are working hard in their educations to get a good career. I believe that these technologies are slowly going to take over the work force and there will not be much employment left for not only college students, but anyone for that matter. Technology is a big idea and the world doesn’t see that if we don’t do something now to attain our basic skills and use technologies only to an advantage to help employers get the job done easier and/or quicker. I believe that we can stop these technologies from “taking over” if we sit down and see what is has already done to our society and what will happen to our society and our future careers and abilities if we let it continue to do so. Technology is not in control, we are in control.