Jarábik Barbara discussing about culture and technology synergy today : For better or worse, we’re living in a technology-driven world. The rapid diffusion of new communications technology and the internet has brought by a drastic global impact on socioculture. Since the internet showed up on the scene in the ’80s and ’90s, it became accessible to the average family in the early 2000s, and eventually began to fit into our pocket with the development of smartphones. Societies around the world have witnessed such a phenomenal proliferation of communication devices that are stimulated by the internet, like computers and smartphones. Most societies are involved in this technological experience, and are very excited about its positive impact.
There exists always a tough competition between technology and tradition in a community. Technology has constrained the world into a global village by globalization. Imagination of today’s life without electricity, transportation, communication, etc. takes us back in time. The advancement in the field of medical science, engineering, economy, etc. is as a result of technology. Industrialization, Urbanization, Modernization, Development of the means of transport and communication is all possible as a result of positive impact of technology. It also helps in networking of the culture, tradition and coherence of the society. The 21st century has been so much forward due to the progress of technology.
In some cultures (African and South Asian), they have a tradition in which people meet and discuss the various factors like visions, dreams and things which influence their day-to-day activities like economics, social and political factors (Zamora, 1990), but in the end of the meetings generally, it was observed that people come up with ideas, but they did not see how these ideas could be implemented. They took mobile phone cameras and documented various stories, traditions and cultural aspects that they were experiencing collectively, later they collectively watch these videos to inspire each others, slowly this use of the technology got spread and people started using the mobile phone cameras to document abuses and by this, they collectively rallied around issues which were documented by the use of such a technology which in social sciences is referred as “collectively call for collective action from below” (Olson, 1965). In this case technology found a new meaning, but to do this you need to trust communities, cultures & traditions.
I would like to discuss in this article whether the ease of access to modern technology holds significant consequences on socio-culture. How does the technology influence in shaping the society thinking, and what are the positive and negative impacts. The nature between technology and socio-culture is cyclical, where each greatly affects the other. Starting with the culture of human societies and resulting in the development of different technologies to meet the needs of the society. Let’s start with the real meaning behind technology and socio-culture. Find additional details at Barbara Jarabik.
But it has been observed during a period of time that different people add to their cultures, ideas and feelings to improve the technology (Williams, 1996) the speed of advancement of technology increases. For example, the android, which itself is an open source platform where advancements takes place from the individual’s perspective, people tend to use the basic technology as a foundation and build over it, to get it adapted in their cultural perspective, few examples of this would be applications which allow farmers to switch on the watering machine to applications such as Skype, which was started from the basic concept of collective sharing of information and got its impact into the various segments of the society like businesses, education, travel, research and many more. It has been observed that there is “no inherent or compelling logic of technical development” (Rohracher, 1998). “Social construction of technology approach (SCOT)” (Pinch, 1984) gives an insight on how culture and sociology of scientific knowledge helps in technological development.