TOEFL iBT Independent Writing, Does technolgy always improve human society?

Writing Topic

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. Technology always contributes to improving human society.

 

 

☆Let’s Think

The word “always” is a key to answer this question. There aren’t many things that always happen. You may say to your friend, “You are always complaining about your sister,” but you don’t literally mean it. You know she does many other things. Most things have exceptions. If some exceptions can be cited about the statement in a writing topic, the conclusion will be negative.

 

When it comes to dealing with the word technology, the following quote says it all:

“Technology is basically neutral. It’s kind of like a hammer. The hammer doesn’t care whether you use it to build a house, or whether a torturer uses it to crush somebody’s skull.”

- Noam Chomsky -

 

Indeed, a hammer can be regarded as one of the first technologies man created, long ago, in the Stone Age. Technology means some application of scientific knowledge, and knowing how to fix two different materials, a piece of stone and a stick of wood, to make a tool and using it with leverage is a technology; we have the word stone age technology. We don’t really know in how many ways cave men used a hammer, but we know that man uses it to do both good and bad things.

 

You could replace the word hammer in this quote with, say, a jet engine, atomic energy, information technology (IT), and so on:

⋆ A jet engine doesn’t care whether you use it to fly an airplane to carry people and goods over the oceans, or whether someone uses it to have a plane smash into a huge commercial building.

⋆ Atomic energy doesn’t care whether a government uses it for power plants to light up its cities, or whether a state uses it to destroy a whole city and eliminate almost all of its population.

⋆Information technology doesn’t care whether people use it to share information to improve each other’s situations, or whether some SNS users end up with driving an actor out of his mind and to commit suicide.

 

Technology can be used in both positive and negative ways depending on us humans. Humans have both positive and negative sides. We can be ill-intentioned, weak, or careless. Also, we are ignorant. What science knows is only a fraction of nature and technology is part of our society, which we don’t remember the last time we controlled well, so technology often causes results that no one could foresee. Antibiotics were discovered and developed to save lives, but in decades they became the causes of viruses called super bugs, viruses which have evolved and acquired resistance to antibiotics. The development of transportation, by which humans and things spread around the world and which contributed to development of some societies, impoverished many societies, contributed to global warming, and spread viruses and funguses (fungi), causing numerous deaths and threatening the future of the earth. Human society does not always develop, and technology is often related to both of its positive and negative changes.

 

 

☆Making the Framework of the Full Essay

The basic English essay structure is as follows:

【Main Idea = Outline】

【Reason 1】

【Reason 2】

【Reason 3】

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】

 

Now let’s make the framework of your full essay. You do not have to write in full sentences. Write down key words and expressions. You can use them as the main idea and examples for each paragraph of your full essay.

 

Sample framework notes:

【Main Idea = Outline】 Disagree: a double edged sward; he who uses it can be both productive and unproductive

【Point 1】can be a weapon  e.g. atomic energy

【Point 2】can bring about disasters  e.g. oil well drilling technology

【Point 3】can degrade some part of the population  e.g. SNS

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】often negative effects on the development of human society

 

 

Your framework notes:

【Main Idea = Outline】

 

【Point 1】

 

 

【Point 2】

 

 

【Point 3】

 

 

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】