Modern Technology Risks: The real risks of 5G and how people perceive them

Abstract

Introduction - The development of technology positively and negatively affects our daily lives worldwide. Every new discovery or development of technology is accompanied by risks that affect people, some positively and some negatively. An important pillar in the development of technology and science is the evolution of wireless networks since after forth generation (4G) now comes the place of the fifth generation (5G). Purpose - This research focus on how people individually perceive the risks that new technologies bring to their daily lives, by studying and examining two different groups of people. The 1st group is concerned to how people who are involved and have knowledge about technology perceive these risks and if they really consider these as risks, to what extent it affects them and the 2nd to how people who are not familiar with the subject perceive these risks, to what level and to what extent they are willing to perceive and really understand them. Methodology – A theoretical analysis of the subject is used, based on the existing literature on new technologies. The necessary data are collected by using a questionnaire and taking a random sample from a mixture of people who are familiar with the new technologies or not (Cypriots and foreigners) who live in Cyprus, asking them to respond to the importance they attach to each risk, by using a relevant scale. For the analysis of the questionnaires, is used the SPSS package No.22 where the student proceeds with the statistical description of each of the questionnaires as also answering the research questions by using the methods of cross tabullations so as to clarify, whether the specific tabulations are really existing or not.

Results – The 70% of the participants said that one of the risks they are going to face from the arrival of the new technology if the fear of the unknown, the 40% mentioned the Insufficient knowledge for most users of the internet, the 31,7% referred to the Lack of a legislative framework, the 25% said that Personal privacy will be more at stake and the 15% referred to health problems that may pop up. In advance, it was found that the group with knowledge agree more than the group with no knowledge that the arrival of the new technological era of 5G, is a positive thin as the first group has a mean of 3,4 and the second group has a mean of 2,6. We have a statistical significance.

Conclusion - The scientific community tends to continue to study, observe and be vigilant on these issues. However, a complete ban on the 5G network would be excessive and would be a barrier to technological innovation. There has also been no significant increase in brain cancer in the last 20 years, although cell phone use has increased significantly. Therefore, scientists conclude that public, state and European institutions should invest in further investigating the effects of these waves.