Barbara Jarabik discussing about culture and technology synergy in 2022 : 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.
Technology plays a crucial role to strengthen interpersonal connection. It has contributed in the sector of health, transportation, electricity, etc. to all the demographic factors of society eg: Modern farming replaced primitive farming allowing increased crops, less time investment, etc. Technology should be oriented towards positive social change. Hence, technology should be developed to design digital ways to connect us not only to each other but to promote our values, to respect each other, and to encourage innovation as we develop a place for ourselves in the 21st century.
Most of these technologies come in a structural way of mapping the world or in other words, the logics like a parent-child relationship, we can observe this in any of the databases, programs or knowledge management systems. Now, since we can see that there are around 6 billion people who use this kind of a technology of mobile phones with very diverse perspectives. We have to collectively rethink the underlying codes that run the technology (Ash, 2013), so we can observe that it is not only technology that shapes culture, but culture also shapes technology.
It’s important to stay updated about what’s going on in the world, but how do you get your news? My grandparents got their news from reading the newspaper, or by interaction with other people. While my parents were able to watch TV, and follow the news daily. Today, I get the news at any time on my smartphone and via the Internet. This evolution is all due to the advancements of technology that is gradually shaping our culture and society. Find more details on 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.