The African Bushmen: Driven Out of the Bush and into the Industrial Era?
4.) Technology and Culture have both influenced each other equally. Technology has been directed as an improvement in our lives, but on the other hand, Culture has been present in every invention, noticeable or not, and advancement in our evolving society. Technology is becoming focused upon more and more everyday, but culture is the determining factor that decides if there is a necessity for an improvement. There are endless views and perspectives that this situation can be viewed from, but without a doubt, technology and culture shape one another. Culture has been a part of our society, and way of life, forever. It is almost impossible to come up with an idea that isn’t influenced by culture. Picture our lives without cars, television, and computers. This would be an example of everyday life without technology. People could function happily in that type of atmosphere, but technology has changed our lives forever. Technology has also changed our pace and perspective on education. Students previously would have to go to libraries and spend a lot of time researching to find out information for class assignments, but with technology students can find almost anything on their home computers and by accessing the internet. Technology has definitely become the authoritative factor in our lives, but culture has shaped technology. Technology is made and used in such a variety of ways because many people who use the technology of today come from all walks of life and have different necessities, so to compensate for that, technology must adapt to all different cultures.
Technology in all of its forms, and in recent times with its rapid improvement and advancement, seems to push itself upon us and our culture, and the same can be said for the rest of the world. Cultures that have never been exposed to technology are now using it in small forms, or have adapted to it quite fondly. These cultures realize the supposed importance of technology in their lives, or may enjoy the simplicity of a new tool that frees up spare time and can get objectives accomplished faster and possibly in a better way than previous endeavors.
Of course, there are cultures than ours who do not so easily embrace technology. This decision on a culture’s part may represent its wish to retain customs, or may just as easily represent its fear.
Technology has become an integral part of our modern society. It has paved the way for growth in all aspects of our daily lives and has helped us mature into better educated adults. Technology is an ever changing constant that will be a part of our culture for years to come. To not embrace technology but blame it for an epidemic of immature adults today, would cause us to miss out on the momentum that will carry us into a future in which the generations will be more mature than even our
In today's world, technology is constantly changing from a new paperclip to an improvement in hospital machinery. Technology lets people improve the way they live so that they can preserve their own personal energy and focus on the really important factors in life. Some people focus their energy on making new innovations to improve transportation and the health of people that may save lives and some people focus on making new designs of packaging CDS. Technology is significant in everyone's life because it rapidly changes what is in the market. But, some new innovations of technology are ridiculous because they serve no purpose in helping mankind.
In today’s world, technology has become a way of life, where survival is difficult without it. According to Jerry Mander, author of In the Absence of the Sacred, he mentions that technology is stressed; the effects it has on society and the living are not fully understood. The cause or diagnosis as to why Westerners are so attached to technology is because they believe life could not go on without it. They are steering away from the old practices of spirituality and religion, and are focusing on creating simpler
Historically, as humans evolve so do their technologies. Accordingly, with each new technology, new conflicts and issues arise within societies due to the advancement. Moreover, as humans are traditionally repetitive beings, culture and technologies tend to be repetitive as well. An important theme across culture is how technology repeatedly changes society and with each societal change; the technology conforms or adapts to the needs of the new society.
Technology aids in the functioning of a group: it is what enables “predominating attitudes and behavior” to be acted upon. Therefore, initially, a culture must provide incentive for the development/adoption of a technology. Once adopted, the technology must then be incorporated into the society, requiring cultural adjustments. Always, usefulness is the key determining factor. Cultural adjustments must be worth the effort, the technology must meet a societal need. The technologies that each society chooses to adopt are the ones that they find the most useful. Societies have not developed different technologies by accident: the criteria for determining “usefulness” is culturally based.
Societal changes stem from many forces including economic and cultural. From some theorists perspective that technology is neutral, technology would not become an important force-- it would act as a tool to advance already existing attitudes. On the contrary, technology is not neutral, the mere existence influences the everyday life of people in society. Technology cannot be described as an empty item controlled with specific intentions of the user; rather, technology can persuade and manipulate the actions of people both positively and negativity. Some perceive technology as the force behind a narrow focus of enhancement that disregards anything it has undone-- old world morals and meaning. Others convey the importance of technology through
The common train of thought in a majority of the world today is that technology just progresses and we accept it and let it change the world around us. Thus a consequent train of thought is that we have no choice but to accept the change in technology. Some people, however, see the lack of necessity for some technological advances. Take for example the iPod or the cell phone, some people are perfectly happy with their old music player, such as a Walkman, or their older non smartphone instead of giving into the current iCraze. Some people do not see the need to have a phone that does everything that a computer does since they may already have a computer at home. Therefore, a person or culture must first accept a technology before it can change the world that they live in; and the culture is able to adapt the technology to fit its specific needs.
The influence that culture has had on human technology is undeniable. One could even go as far as to say that sometimes, it is difficult to distinguish between the two. The term “culture” is extremely difficult to define because of the vast array of meanings that people attach to it. For this very reason, it is imperative to examine the most basic notion of culture, namely: “the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought” (as taken from www.dictionary.com). Given this definition, it seems reasonable to conclude that human technologies fall under the category of “all other products of human work and thought”. Yet, although human technologies are closely linked to culture, we must draw certain distinctions between the two.
Human culture and technology are continually co-evolving in a dynamic relationship. All technologies (See Note 1) develop in a particular cultural context as the result of changing needs or constraints. But once developed, a technology changes the culture that gave it birth. When a technology spreads to another culture, the cultural context affects the speed or way in which the technology is adopted and how it is used. The diffusion of technologies to other cultures changes those other cultures as well. The changes in culture that one technology creates may then influence the development of another or different technology.
Throughout human history the fundamental driving force behind any change culturally or technologically is the human goal. The innate human ability for abstract thought has made us able to project a plan for our own future. Originally our foresight directly pertained to our own survival, making our way to the next meal, and perpetually intertwined with our interaction with and relationship to our own environment. The living environments that we experience include the places where we live, those that we visit, and anything else that constitutes what we may see or do. Therefore our relationship to the environment which we experience is very location-dependant in terms of resources and environmental factors. For example, nomadic people who live in the desert lead drastically different lives to those who live in the rainforest or those who live in cities. In this way many different human cultures developed all over earth, and have had varying effects on the development of culture and technology. I believe that these different cultures provided different goals for each society that motivated technological innovations at different time and for different reasons. As we all, no doubt, see everyday the advent of technology has greatly affected our living environment. Twenty years ago hardly anyone had heard of the internet, and now it’s a worldwide information superhighway. People have made their lives revolve solely around the internet; fortunes have been won and lost on the computer industry. But there are countless other examples of how technology has molded and changed cultures, and so I also believe that technology and culture have a symbiotic relationship; they feed off of and grow from one another similar to what we have dubbed a feedback loop in our class discussions.
Technology allows culture to evolve by creating solutions to problems by removing constraints that exist. Every invention and concept is expanded on to create the utmost perfect solution. Although this process can take decades, or even centuries, to actually develop a proficient resolution, the end result is what advances society industrially. There are conflicting views, however, if these advances are beneficially or maliciously affecting society (Coget). There are three kinds of people in regards to the attitude toward technology: technophiles, technophobes, and those who aren't biased in either regard (Coget). Technophiles understand that the world adapts to the advances in technology and uses them to improve their lives (Tenner). Technophobes observe technology as damaging or are uncomfortable in using it (DeVany). It is undeniable that technology is ever-expanding, thus peaking curiosity to uncover what fuels the fear behind the technophobes. Our focus is concentrated on the technophiles and the technophobes . I will begin with the latter as they contribute greatly to the ov...
The standard 21 year old adults have exchanged 250 thousand emails, spent 5 thousand hours video gaming and 10 thousand hours using their mobile devices (Lei, 2009). When people hear the word technology, they think of microwaves, televisions, cars, NASA, different types and transportation and more. For all that, technology has occurred long ahead these discoveries. Technology is an arguable matter amongst people. .In the old days, people lived an extremely simple life without technology. They used candles to light their houses and lanterns at the dark to travel, they used fire to cook and used newspapers and mail to share news. On the other hand, technology has seized an important place in our society. People are living in a stage of progressive technology. They are using all natural reserves applicable for making their lives better and easier. The society cannot picture life without electricity since it allows them to live through their everyday life. This paper argues that technology positively impacts people’s lives.
The Technological Dilemma: Blindly embrace our new found Technology and perhaps face the Extermination of the Human Social Structure. As sci-fi as this might seem, society’s full acceptance of technology and its integration into the most miniscule of tasks has far exceeded any consideration of the harm that technology presents. There is practically no area of our social existence in which Technology has not grasped its cold metal tentacles about. As we attempt to argue against the seemingly blind acceptance of technology in this paper, think about each point and how technology might be better monitored in your environment. You’ll realize that the involvement of technology in everyday tasks of the human culture is not really as good a thing as our leaders, businesses and the majority of the community would have you believe.
Culture has been a part of our society, and way of life, forever. It is almost impossible to come up with an idea that isn’t influenced by culture. As new technology is introduced into a society, the culture reacts in a positive or negative way and is thus changed forever. Despite the fact that we cannot really ignore that there are a number of ways in which technology negatively impacts our society, for the better part it has greatly helped to make lives better. It has also helped us a great deal to be able to save on many resources such as time and money and these are great benefits that cannot be ignored. It has also worked well in bringing unity into the world by turning it into a global village which has in turn helped people to more easily overcome their cultural, racial and continental barriers. Like we saw in the case of Ireland where technological advancements have shaped and molded the country into a completely new one that is better than the one it was before. Technology is made and used in such a variety of ways because many people who use the technology of today come from all walks of life and have different necessities, so to compensate for that technology must adapt to all different cultures. Consequently, as cultures change so does the technology they develop. Ultimately, advances in technology directly affect how cultures evolve, complex interactions are all the result of the dynamic and perpetual relationship between technology and
The relationship between technology and culture is cyclical. Logically, a culture will develop technologies based on the needs or desires of the people, because this is where the creative influences lie. As this technology spreads and is absorbed into the people’s lives, it affects their culture and way of life. This change in lifestyle can also occur when a technology developed outside a culture is introduced into the culture, providing an external influence. As Paul Ehrlich explains, there are technological evolutions and associated cultural evolutions, and they do not necessarily occur concurrently. Ehrlich [believes] that, in our modern era, technology is evolving faster than culture, and a major cultural evolution needs to occur to be able to deal with modern technology properly. (NPR, Ehrlich) Throughout history, though, there have also been cultural evolutions that lead to the creation and evolution of technology; hence, the cycle.