A few decades ago, almost every American's dream was to one day own a car. Nowadays, this dream has become a reality for the majority of the population. A 2001 report released by the Energy Information Administration showed that on average, America alone owns about 1.79 cars per household (“Household Vehicles Energy,” 2005). With all the luxuries and technologies available to Americans, the United States has proven itself to be one of the most advanced nations in the world. Now ask yourself: What would America look like without the advanced technology it has today? Culture and life would be much more different and complicated for almost all human beings. Additionally, some of today's most important jobs would not exist. Obviously, at one point in history this was the case and all construction was done with hand tools and nothing else. Everything changed in the industrial age, when human-operated machines helped replace the manual labor of artisans. Today this is called mechanization. It was not until the 19th century that Americans went further and automation was born. Automation is the automatic operation and control of machines capable of making decisions without human intervention (Plotkin, 2009). As you might expect, automation has its pros and cons. This form of manufacturing can cause employment problems for the company because human labor is not necessary. However, with the replacement of human workers with technology, higher quality products can be produced at lower costs (“Automation”, 2010). Therefore, by balancing the positive and negative factors of automation, it is clear that it has a beneficial impact on American society.A...... middle of article ......lance [Flight. 10]. (Adobe Digital Edition), retrieved from http://www.springer.com/computer/image+processing /book/978-0-387-78880-7Jenkins, D. (August 2, 2005). Survey reveals PC and console ownership figures. Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=6094Plotkin, R. (Producer). (2009). The future of invention (2 of 8): history of the automation of inventions. [Internet]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWuDil0j2YcRobot news: advantages and disadvantages of automation in industrial robots. (February 11, 2008). Retrieved from http://www.robots.com/blog.php?tag=112Vassar, M. (nd). Flexible automated manufacturing. Retrieved from http://lifeboat.com/ex/flexible.automated.manufacturing