Introduction
The advancement of science and technology has brought about a radical change in the lifestyle and living standard of human beings. By each and every invention day by day, science has been gradually adding one after another machine and tool for the ease and comfort of mankind, and helping in releasing pressure of works and headache to execute them as well. So, our life on this earth is constantly undergoing evolution and, in some cases, we still feel the lack of latest technologies that will help us boost the pace of our life. With the evolution of latest technology, we are happy and comfortable with it until its random use, abuse or misuse results in bad affects by hampering our normal life. Hence, the scenario is not at all positive in terms of our living and values. Human values have been extremely hampered and affected by the current progress of science and technology
Scientific Advancement: The Demand of the Time
Today, life seems to be competing with natural forces like sound, light, etc. as every human being is constantly moving here and there in search of something they want or in some cases unknowingly. They are hurrying to and fro, competing with themselves or one another to be the winner in the world. But if one of them is asked about his destination, he gets stuck what to answer, or what would be his correct response; it is common among millions of people because of their ignorance about their ultimate situation.
Now, the most essential requirement of time is to live happily and help our neighbours and the people around us to live happily as well. Happiness is the motto of our life, but different people define happiness differently. A poor leads a simple life with the bare necessities of life and his life yields much more happiness and satisfaction than that of a rich man because riches begets more and more riches become the firm conviction of the rich man, and hence he becomes restless to hoard more and more. This results in stress, fear of uncertain failure or success, and frustration in the end if he fails, and if he succeeds––he rushes more and more for the more. Thus, he leads his life through scarcity missing the feeling of satisfaction and happiness. In reality, a man thus struggles day-night in order to give the best standard of life as per his expectation to his family failing to enjoy the blissful life, losing the pleasant moments of togetherness, family and even children. But when he gets manages plenty of times, by then his next generation begins rushing with a load of responsibilities. Our life is sophisticated enough with the want of satisfaction.
Human values: The Bliss of Mankind
The specific characteristics of humans are human values: respect, emotion, mercy, gratitude, etc. We have six senses to realise, feel, understand and even develop them and make our neighbourhood a comfortable place to live in. We have a great source of intellect to analyse and judge our deeds in terms of human values. But the fast advancement of technology and its gadgets have swallowed our brain and, as a result, we remain absorbing in them almost round the day, and we have with us hardly a little bit of time to think of our values. The faster growth has made us selfish, heartless, brutal and even loose commonsense. Today, our only and foremost aim is to achieve success at any cost––may be love, breech of family bond, life or happiness of other persons. But we have neither any sense of feeling our dignity nor carefulness to respect other’s emotions or feelings that we encounter in course of our success.
Impact of Science on Human values
Science Devoid of Abstracts of the Nature
Man has won his dominant position on this earth by his command of science and technology, but he has failed to sense the abstracts of the nature and, as a natural result, he suffers and lacks them greatly. Man can develop his science and technology impart his intellect to his latest gadgets which can never mimic the natural living forms. Thus, science advancing faster on the contrary abstracts of nature is decreasing from humans in parallel. Today, we are surrounded by machines and machines, but lacking the values. Our brain has surrendered its freedom to the science and technology as they give us hassle-free life devoid of the abstracts of nature. We can explore the land, the water or even the space that is limitless and immensely vast, but we have neither power nor patience to explore ourselves, the self in us, where our values are dying out of our knowledge making us poorer and poorer. The crying need of the world today is the human values, not the so-called happiness and satisfaction, as the values, the abstracts of nature, are the treasure house of those feelings for which we are blindly hankering after.
Internet, the Boon of Science, the Consumer of Our Time and Energy
One of the mightiest inventions and gadgets of the current science and technology is undoubtedly the internet that attracts us, captivates us and consumes our quality time out of our knowledge. The charms of the inventions are really untameable. The days have gone when children passed their time with the old and their playmates. Now children often leave their assignments to enter the world of internet and enjoy the thing they want and hang out for hours together. The most popular social media, like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, powered by the internet, are the only medium of spending time by chatting, exchanging SMS and videoconferencing with friends, relatives and even with strange people. This is the latest trend developed from young to old, and even to get their shopping, interactions, communications and the work tasks done through internet.
Our wishes of getting things done are bonded to machines, the gifts of science. We hardly do anything that does not need a machine. We wake up by the alarm of the clock, now mostly by alarm of the clock of our mobile phone, make our room comfortable by a fan or cooler or an AC, take exercise with scientific devices, get a bath hot or cool, cook food, press dresses, travel, work in office off-or on-line, and till we return home and switch on the television or turn on the computer, connect to the internet and go to bed. In a word, our days start and end with machines. We are lacking time for our family, friends and loved ones. In our mechanical life, we only suffer the unhealthy body and mind.
Deterioration of patience and elevation of exasperation in fast age
The scientific advancement has fastened and multiplied the pace of the world. We are in need of different gadgets and benefits that make our life comfortable and happy. Our endeavours to obtain all these make us move faster. But the science and technology move so fast that we are hardly able to move in parallel to them, and often could see the ominous. Definitely, this hankering is not a positive sign for the wellbeing of mankind. In this course of life, we are not only impatient, but we are losing also the level of our gifted emotions. All these as a whole, deteriorate our patience at the slightest concern, exasperate our power of elevation, and make our life miserable.
Science, the bearer of comfort, inculcates greed for money technology and highly sophisticated gadgets are behind our increasing demand of more comfortable and luxurious living, which also in return demands money. The luxury and comfort have charged us with the aim of hoarding more and more money, and encourage us always to run faster day by day. This run has no end as science and technology are providing us with their latest boons that allure us more and more. Under such circumstances, what should keep in mind are as follows:
i. Nothing is lost, if wealth is lost.
ii. Something is lost when health is lost.
iii. Everything is lost the moment the character is lost.
But in today’s mechanical world, we are really ready to lose everything for the sake of wealth, but why?
Life with or without Science and Technology Effect on Health and Hygiene
The byword goes, ‘health is wealth’. But where is health and hygiene that keep us physically as well as mentally hale and hearty? Science has also snatched the natural process of keeping us fit as a fiddle in both those terms. The constant rush for money and wealth by dint of science and technology has been gradually deteriorating our health for the lack of exercise. As a result, we look out for the scientific devices in artificial or closed gymnasiums as a status symbol, instead of walking and jogging in the open grounds in the lap of nature where fresh air prevails. Particularly, these activities have burdened us with loads of stress and strain, and made our body the factory of new or artificial diseases which even science fails to help us fight or cure.
Education
Despite our extensive research in the field of education, the books till now deteriorate the power of our concentration. We have also forgotten the olden days of learning just by hearing. At the advent of the twenty-first century, we are about to lose the art as well as skill of writing as the widespread use of computers in this age of advanced technology has considerably replaced pen and paper with computers. As a result, the next generation is certain to lose another important art, writing. Moreover, the rate of literacy has, by this time, increased but few of us are able to make the best use of our knowledge. It is hard to feel that our trend of giving value to our art, culture and human values are at great risk.
Conclusion
At last but not the least, we should remind our past, learn day by day and undertake just measures at the right time to prevent the odds and ills of science and technology. We should grow and advance with science and technology, rectify our mistakes and blunders as well with an intense focus on human values so that the next generation might not lack the things we are lacking right now. We should not fall in the alluring trap of science and technology that mar our moral values. We must save and cultivate our moral values in parallel to the technological advancement with a view to the betterment of mankind. Both human values and science are need of the time, if we give up science, we cannot walk; and on the other hand, if we lose moral values, we suffer lots of stress and strain, and die every day.