Looking Ahead Through the Lens of Technology

    For centuries, technological and scientific research has been conducted primarily to meet human needs. Today, however, technology has begun to create new needs for people. As each new technological product emerges, it creates new needs for people, and these needs have begun to change our habits. From this perspective, NG Research conducted a study on the effects of technology on people, consumption habits, and future expectations that technology creates for humanity through the www.benderimki.com online public opinion research platform, with the participation of 750 respondents reflecting Turkey's demographics.  

According to the findings of the study, many participants closely follow technological developments while rating themselves as highly proficient in the use of technological products.

In fact, according to the research, our population spends an average of 8 hours per day with technological products, while devoting an average of 4 hours of this time to social media. These results show that technology occupying a considerable place in our lives causes us to transfer our social relationships to these platforms. We cannot say that this situation does not affect human life. Therefore, participants were asked for their views on this matter. One in five people believes that technology generally has a negative impact on people's habits, and one in three believes that social media negatively affects human relationships. When participants were asked what they associate technology with, the answer "phone" was given to a large extent. In fact, when they were asked to imagine developing a technological product, it became apparent that the focus of most developments was on the phone.Another finding from the study is surprising in that it contradicts the real-world situation. It emerges as a point on which almost everyone agrees that children should not be exposed to technology until they turn 3 years old.

While it is widely thought that it would be more appropriate for children to encounter technology primarily upon starting elementary school, two in three do not find the technological education provided in schools to be sufficient.

  Seven in ten believe that technological products, while varying from product to product, are generally indicators of social status. As a result, it emerges naturally that two in ten are unhappy because they cannot own popular technological products. On the other hand, while people find technological developments beneficial, three in ten express fear of the future that developing technology brings us. With the Industrial Revolution, machines began to replace people in many areas. While this situation was expected to increase unemployment, newly created job fields showed that these fears were unfounded. Today, we see that robots with artificial intelligence are becoming increasingly integrated into our daily lives. Autonomous vehicles and surgical robots are examples that have begun to enter our daily lives. Although technology sometimes has negative effects on human relationships and everyday life, living standards are steadily increasing with developing new technological products. Questions were also asked about expectations regarding the future that these changes bring. As artificial intelligence reaches more advanced levels, robots occupying a more dominant place in daily life compared to humans emerges as a general expectation. In relation to this situation, three in four believe that this will lead to increased unemployment. From robotic limbs developed to eliminate disabilities and even make the human body stronger, to transferring the human mind to a computer, we cannot know what awaits us in a future with technological advances in many different fields. But the reality is that ultimately, the production and use of technology lies in human hands. Therefore, we create both our fears and our dreams about the future ourselves.