The Impact of Technology on Today's Society - Research Paper Example

The Impact of Technology on Society This research paper will focus on the impact of technology all aspects of society. It will thoroughly explain the positive impacts of technology on political, social and economic organization as well as its impacts on health and the environment. At the end of the discussion on each domain will be the analysis of the weight of the positive and negative impacts of technology. This will establish whether the benefits of technology outweigh the negative implications. At the end will be an a discussion of how engineering should be practiced in relation to technology followed by a brief conclusion. The research is based on data gathered from secondary sources. INTRODUCTION Menon (2011) explains that technology is the application of science to solve a problem. However, there is no definite definition of technology. As technology advances its definition changes. No one definition can describe technology without limiting it. This is because technology evolves each and every day to become more complex and sophisticated. Different types of technology work in different ways for example, we use information technology like the internet for creating and securing data, learning and communication. The scope of this paper is to establish the impact of technology on society. The goal is to find out the impact of technology on society socially, politically, economically and its influence on health and the environment. The general thing about the different types of technology is that people use them to make life better. How did the society function prior to the wide spread use of technology? According to Harrington (2009), it is impossible to argue that the society has ever existed without technology. Technology has existed for as long as man. The technology that existed in the past may not be as sophisticated and complex as it is today. The introduction of this paper defines technology as the use of science to solve problems and make life better. Computers and the internet may not have existed in the past but science was used to progress man, for example; pyramids of the Egyptians existed in the past. These pyramids represent the use of scientific laws in architecture in the past. The technology that exists today may not have existed in the past but there were innovations and inventions then that can also be termed as technology. One of the differences between the technology today and that which existed in the past is in regards to technology type and its use. Extensive technology use can be said to have begun in the industrial period. It is in this period that scientific discoveries and innovations emerged more, spread widely and advanced to be the technology it is today. The society prior to the widespread use of technology was organized in a different way. The social, economic, political, health and environmental aspects of society were different. The part focus on the society before industrialization (before the 18th century). Social organization In the 17th century a society was merely a group of people who shared common boundaries and were held together by a common culture, customs and values as well as governed by the same laws (Harrington, 2009). Prior to the wide spread use of information technology, communication was done very differently. In some societies such as those in Europe there were people designated to be messengers. In the African societies smoke or horn blowing was used as a means of communication, for example to call village members to a meeting. Interaction was limited due to transport problems and therefore intermarriages were common. The only form of education that existed was traditional. In traditional education boys were prepared for their roles as men in society and women were taught how to be mothers and wives. Political organization Before the 18thC the society was organized in small villages, each village had its own laws and its own system of governance. Some societies were governed by kings; for example European societies, others by chiefs; for example Native Americans and others by a council of elders; for example African societies. The leadership was hereditary, thus passed through generations, and therefore leaders were mostly from one lineage (Luppicini, 2012). Economic organization Harrington (2009) explains that the societies had limited economic activities such as hunting and gathering, farming and iron smelting. Moreover, labor division was allocated with reference to age and sex and there was no specialization. There was no individual ownership of property in this period. Property was owned by the community. The returns gotten from activities such as farming were shared evenly among community members. Health The societies relied on herbs as medicine. Medicine men were regarded as specialist in treatment. These medicine men did not undergo any form of training and they merely relied on the knowledge that was passed down to them through generations (Menon, 2011). People died from simple illnesses such as chicken pox because they lacked the knowledge to treat them. The environment The environment was very clean. Nature was regarded as sacred by many communities and it was therefore feared and respected. Associating nature with religion caused the people not to exploit it in any damaging ways (Harrington, 2009). Conservation of the environment was the way of life. There was no pollution because industrialization had not begun. The society after the widespread use of technology The widespread use of technology has had impacts on the social, political and economic organization of the society as well as to health and the environment Social organization The wide spread use of technology has led to social change that are both positive and negative. One of the positive implications of technology is that today information technology such as the internet, social media and mobile phones has made the world a global village. The society is now heterogeneous meaning people of different races, cultures and ethnicities who live in a given locality and are governed by the same laws (Luppicini, 2012). Technology has allowed social interaction between people in different parts of the world. Communication between people who are continents away from each other is only a click away. Technological advancements such as airplanes and cars have also made transport easy. This has also made interaction of people of different cultures. Education has also become formal and career oriented. Additionally, technology has greatly influenced the emergence of urban centers that are the centers for trade, commerce, industrialization and governance. Technology has also led to modernization. It is the adoption of modern ways of life. People have abandoned religion, traditional values and customs and now look up to science and technology as the way of life. The negative implications of technology on social organization are several. Menon (2011) argues that technology has led to unemployment. Manual labor has now been replaced by machines leaving many people especially the youth jobless. Technology has also led to change in social institutions. Modernization has led to people abandoning the traditional sense of morality. Religion has also lost its value in society with more people relying more on science. Institutions such as marriage and family are also losing their value, for example roles such as socialization which were previously played by family are now performed by the school and peer groups. From this analysis it is very clear that technology has had more positive effects on social organization because the positive impacts explained definitely exceed the negative ones. Political organization Society is now divided into various nations. Each nation has its own laws and its own governance systems. Leadership has also changed to become democratic. The people are the ones who vote for those who will lead them. Modern technology also allows for people residing in a foreign country to vote for leaders in their home countries which may be miles away. Technology also allows the governments of various states to collect taxes and use it in development (Harrington, 2009). It allows the citizens to participate in leadership, for example through such sites as twitter an individual is able to interact with their leader and launch any complains or concerns that he/ she has. In the negative perspective, technological advancements have created weapons that may cause wide spread death and suffering in the event of war between nations. However, only one negative implication of technology to political organization was found. The positive implications are more meaning that technology has done more good than harm to political organization. Health Technology has had its pros and cons especially on human health. Technological research has led to break through that have cured many diseases; for example, there are vaccinations that now exist to prevent polio which had killed many people in the past. The adoption of technology into electronic health records saves time, improves the data coordination and secures the privacy of patient information. Diagnosis and treatment of patients has also become fast and accurate. Technological advancements in medical instruments have also made the work of doctors easier and treatment of patients better (Luppicini, 2012). Technology has also led to negative implications on health. The internet for instance has medical sites which are full of health information. This may encourage self-diagnosis and which may have serious implications to one’s health. Technologies such as industries also cause radiation and have poisonous emissions which are dangerous to human health. Technologies cause direct harm to health; for example, laptops are known to cause eyesight problems. According to Menon (2011), technology has also led to addiction which is harmful. Today, people are physically inactive and suffer from lifestyle diseases because they spend the whole day glued to their phones, television and laptops. The numbers of lives saved due to technological advancements in the health sector are more than the number of lives lost due to technology. This shows that technology has done more good than bad in health. The environment There have been positive implications of technology on the environment. Technology is being applied to solve the different environmental problems being experienced today, for example; companies have developed green technologies such as low carbon cars. However, it may be argued that technology is the source of the very environmental problems that it is trying to solve (Harrington, 2009). From the research done, it may have concluded that technology has done more harm than good to the environment. This is because technologies such as laptops, phones, chemical and nuclear wastes are the main cause of environmental pollution. The research done in the course of writing this paper has led me to the decision that engineering should employ the most advanced technology in operations. This is because technology will improve the speed and efficiency of work. In regards to environmental impact, engineering firms should ensure that they employ technologies that are environmental friendly, for example by using the low carbon machines. Engineers should also wear safety attires like gas masks and gloves in their operations to protect themselves from the negative effects of the chemicals they come into contact with in their operations. CONCLUSION Technology has had an impact on each and everyone’s life. It may be said that the people today cannot survive without technology because they use it to do each and every thing. People rely on technology for all functions ranging from entertainment to education. The over reliance proves that this is indeed a digital era. References: Harrington, J. L. (2009). Technology and society. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett. Luppicini, R. (2012). Ethical impact of technological advancements and applications in society. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Menon, R. V. G. (2011). Technology and society. New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley. Read More