Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology in Education

Educated youth are crucial for the economic and societal growth of any country. If a country has more literacy rate and its youth are educated enough they can compete with the world and can improve the economy as well.

Technology is as important today as education because if we imagine learning or teaching without technology in the current era, it will be a disaster for any country.

Without technology, we can’t teach efficiently to our youth nor students can learn efficiently today. Remember, as we know that technology has lots of positive effects on education, but there are some negative impacts as well which we will discuss later.

Technology has brought so much advancement into the education sector which we will discuss first.

Advantages of Technology in Education

Whether you are a student or a teacher, you will admit that technology has changed education in the last decade so much. A highly educated person before the 21st century can not be considered well-educated if not updated with technology.

Why I am saying this because they had no internet and no quick access to hundreds and thousands of libraries across the world.

They had no visuals like today (especially after covid-19 education sector transformed very quickly).

Let’s discuss a few points and arguments proving the importance of technology in education.

1. Educational costs is reduced a lot in recent years

As technology is introduced to the education sector, the cost of education is reduced because there is no need to take extra tuition classes for students. They can simply learn and understand the concepts online free from YouTube, Udemy, etc.

No need to buy lots of books in hard copy because now you can use your phone/tablet or laptop to read the books in PDF form online called E-Books.

Additionally, e-books are indirectly contributing to reducing deforestation, one of the greatest environmental problems, by being used in education.

2. Quick access to lots of educational resources

Imagine learning some concepts from different books in the 20th century when there were no e-books. A student or a professor couldn’t buy heavy books with thousands of pages just to extract some concepts.

Technology made the process easy and cost-effective for learners and researchers by introducing e-books. Now you can read thousands of books with your fingertips through the internet in seconds.

Students don’t need to bring dozens of books to educational institutes daily, they can now learn from visuals and can write and share notes online.

3. Technology provides learners with an immersive learning experience

Chalkboard drawing has never been thought of as an effective method of learning. For example, we can’t compare the size of our planet with that of the sun or other planets no matter how hard we try to draw on a white or blackboard.

In addition to good drawing skills, you will need a lot of time to complete this task. We have been able to simplify a lot of things because of technology in education. It helps save time and clear up the concept in one step.

It was never been thought before that education will be this much easier through technology.

4. Education that is tailored to each student’s needs

Before technology, the same teacher will teach dozens of students with the capacity the trainer had. It wasn’t possible to give every student a personalized example to make them understand the concept.

Today, due to technology, we are free to learn from the hundreds of world’s top university teachers online even if we are sitting in a poor country.

Even teachers are helped by technology, they teach more effectively through slides and visuals which can be understood easily by students.

5. Makes students aware of the importance of digital literacy

Technology teaches students and teachers the importance of digital literacy because it is the need for time to remove the gap between digitally literate and illiterate people through technology.

As we can see today in this modern technology era, some countries have still old syllabi from the 20th century taught to them in educational institutes.

Through internet technology, they can be aware of the updates and new inventions happening worldwide.

These were some of the common and important contributions of technology in education.

Disadvantages of Technology in Education:

Now, as I told you at the start that technology has some negative effects as well on education, so you must know about that as well. Let’s dive deep below.

1. Technology can be a distraction to students when used inappropriately

Technology that helps students also can distract them from studies due to the free hand on any type of content through the internet.

For example, they might play irrelevant games, and use social media excessively. When computers are not protected, young children can be exposed to inappropriate information or content.

Children can be protected from exposure to such content through website blockers, internet filters, and close supervision, as well as through lessons in “netiquette,” or how to interact with the internet properly.

2. Face-to-face relationships can be lost through technology

While using technology, students can surf and connect anonymously with anyone around the globe which can lead them to unethical behavior and addiction to fake identities.

Due to the open environment with no restrictions, they are addicted to screens and the internet and hence lose social face-to-face interaction even with friends and family.

Also, the experience of learning face-to-face from a teacher is lost due to online classes. Therefore, technology should be used as a tool not as the only component of the whole learning process.

3. Unreliable sources may confuse students

Students can learn from internet technology by accessing quick knowledge but they must know whether the sources are reliable or not.

There is a lot of fake information available on the Internet which appears like it’s accurate and true.

Students should be shown the ways to access accurate information, and how to verify its validity.

4. Some students may be affected by health issues as a result of technology

As technology advances, we also learn effectively. However, there can be some drawbacks to using technology as well. Students can be affected by health issues as a result of using excessive technology.

For example, some students may suffer from headaches or eye strain after looking at a computer screen for long periods of time.

There are ways to reduce these bad effects, however. If you take breaks often, use proper lighting, and adjust font sizes it can help reduce strain on your eyes.

Make sure to focus on one task at a time. It can help train the brain to filter out distractions.

5. Students may disconnect from class when using technology

If we talk about taking classes online, the students can simply join the class and starts playing games or watching movies in other tabs of browsers which disconnects them from classes.

If we talk about the use of technology in classrooms, even then it is possible that the students open the E-book and also start chatting with friends on other apps which can distract them from the class and what is being taught.

Also, it can be experienced that sometimes, students face internet issues in online classes, and hence they are disconnected which leads to a loss of interaction with the teacher and other students.

Conclusion on Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology in Education

We already discussed the positive and negative sides of technology in detail above. The final verdict according to the arguments mentioned above is, Technology is a need of the education sector and it helps in learning and teaching effectively. However, It is also a damaging factor to the creativity of students if it is not used properly. It can make education even more worse and difficult if used without any proper checks on the students. They can get addicted to technology and lose the actual aim of getting educated.