ABSTRACT
This study was intended to relationship between Technology and Youth
Moral Values. The study was guided by the following objectives; to examine the
relationship between technological advancement and moral values; technology and
humanitarian levels and to examine the relationship between innovation and
morality.
The study employed descriptive
and explanatory design, questionnaires in addition to library research were
applied in order to collect data. Primary and secondary data sources were used
and data was analyzed using statistical package which was presented in
frequency tables and percentage. The respondents under the study were 28
employees of Ministry of Science and Technology, Akwa ibom State. The study
majorly focused on phases and components of ethics: The Impact of Technology on
Youths and their Moral Values.
The study findings revealed that
Key Findings from the Study suggest that technology significantly influence
youth moral values.. Chi-square significant at 0.01 level (2-tailed), 0.00
indicates the significance of interaction between two variables an indication
that the significant is under the range of 0.0 and 0.05.
Using the above findings, it
implied that there is a strong relationship between Technology and Youth Moral
Values. The Ministry of Science and Technology, Akwa ibom State should Restrictions On What Website, Gadgets And
Applications should Be Placed And Enforced By Parents On Their Children..
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
to the Study
Technological advancements have posed
ethical questions from the issue of cloning to privacy and communication
because as much as they make life easier and are indications of what humanity
can achieve, they also beg the question “are we losing our humanity”? This
issue has poised technology and religion against each other so that it is as
though the more one edges towards the areas that depend on the tangible; what
can be touched and felt and explained through empiricism, the more one deviates
away from that which depends on belief and faith alone. Philosophers like
Michel Foucault who are at the forefront of thinking and those at the helm of
our present day telecommunications and social networking like Mark Zukerberg
and Bill Gates are all atheists. This buttresses the binary opposition we speak
of.
Although it is a given that our
generation known as the millenials have gained so much through technological
advancements; albeit there have been more innovations within the past five
years than there are within the past two thousand years, there are serious
humanitarian issues being grappled with as a result of human dependency on
these inventions. It is easier now to communicate with people who are miles
away all at the same time without needing to take time and think about forming
useful physical human relations with others. Young people on a bus no longer
communicate with each other as the older generation used to. Against this
background, we are setting out to delve into the ethical effects of technology
on the youth, their moral values and their education.
1.2 Statement
of the Problem
The problems generated by technology on
the moral values and education of the youth of today abound. A typical
millennial is more interested in the opinions of his peers than never before.
Social media platforms have initiated a habit of pretense in the circle of life
of the youth. It exposes them to the flashness of life so that those who are
unable to gain these luxuries at the moment do anything to get them or fake
having them thereby making them to live on a pretentious foundation. These
social media platforms celebrate people with questionable sources of wealth
than those with high moral values. What counts are followers and how many
people follow one. Consequently, these uninformed and misinformed young people
do everything to stand out including lowering their moral values, dressing
extremely indecently. The
technological developments that aimed at bringing the world closer and together
to connect better has thereby alienated he world especially the youth and the
shallow competition we mentioned earlier consequently increase the rate of
sexuality among them as sex sells more than anything from the musical videos to
their prized TV reality shows where the morally depraved are celebrated. With
sex being peddled through technology, pregnancies and STDs are on the rise. Of
course, they run to technology to provide them with answers and the online
pages on google whose major interest is to draw traffic to their websites
suffuse them with the wrong information and education.
This
research aims at discussing at length, these ethical questions raised by
technological effect on the youth’s moral values and education.
1.3 Research
Questions
The research question which has called
forth this present work is the inquiry into the ethical effect of technology on
the youth generally. They include:
1. Does technological advancements effect
the youth’s moral values negatively?
2. To what extent are these humanitarian
issues
3. At what point does innovation encroach
mortality.
1.4 Objectives
of the Study
The objectives of this research work
goes beyond posing the above ethical question to tackling them in a very
remarkable, yet, academic way with all the acceptable and methodologies of the
domiciled discipline.
In the area of topographical studies
and language disciplines, it will directly and indirectly proffer informed
solutions as to the problem of how much technology affect language and vice
versa. The implication is that legislations upon guiding technology through a
better language considerations will have a better backbone. This is a very
polarizing issue which has over the centuries catalyzed into crusades and
tyrannical inquisitions. So this work aims also at mapping out not only how
technology affects the youth ethically but also to design workable guidelines
in determining the boundaries between innovation and morality and how the use
of these inventions can amount to abuse.
1.5 Significance
of the Study
Albeit this work was done under the
department of philosophy, it’s significance encompasses the humanities
generally, the physical sciences, pharmaceuticals, medical sciences and even
the biological sciences. This work is important to those that specialize in
parenting guidance and counselling. It will inform them in drafting guidelines
for on how to slowly and safely integrate their children and their youth into a
technologically ruled world so that they do not lose the morals bequeathed them
during their formative years.
1.6 Research
Hypothesis
Every research sets out from an
assumption that would either be proven to be correct or not. In the case of
this one the present writer is taking as a given at this point that
technological inventions in all it’s trajectories are affecting the youth’s
moral values and education negatively.
1.7 Scope
of the Study
The scope of this research work would
be determined by two things namely the various categories of technology like
social media and the internet generally, pharmaceuticals which includes all the
hard drugs that the youth are prone to abuse, movies and what they present and
how technology has eased the procurement of those materials so that it their
monitoring by the older generation is close to impossible.
1.8 Limitations
of the Study
A research problem such as was tackled
in this one would require one to sift through a stack of material on previous
arguments and counter argument on this polarizing issue. And with the limited
time and space one has in the research of this kind, one has to work beyond
one’s limits in order to achieve a thorough work within the given time frame.
1.9 Definition
of Terms
Ethics
This is the philosophy of morality and
behavioral conduct. Especially when it is related to a particular profession.
In the last sense, it is the body of rules and regulations that dictate the
conduct of practitioners of a particular profession.
Technology
This is a term that in one sweep
describes the organized body of knowledge that are used for practical purposes
especially in the sense of the ones developed by a particular culture for use.