Technology and Society

What if you have the ability to travel back in the past then what do you want to do? Well, if I will this question my answer would just be sightseeing. If I have that ability to fly back into the past I would like to witness the evolution of technology and its effects in the society from yesterday until the present time. It is because technology is a very important thing to all of us. In addition to that the past displays that as soon as a new technology is introduced to the society, the society changes. That is one thing I wanted to witness in the ancient times for the reason that technology has been a great help to us, to everyone. We gain a lot of benefits from it. For example, it has improved every countries economy, improved our lives, and a lot more.

From an article it cited in The Impact of Technology on Society that James Burke, Connections states, “. . . the moment man first picked up a stone or a branch to use as a tool, he altered irrevocably the balance between him and his environment. From this point on, the way in which the world around him changed was different. It was no longer regular or predictable. New objects appeared that were not recognizable as a mutation of something that had existed before, and as each one emerged it altered the environment not for a season but for ever. While the number of these tools remained small, their effect took a long time to spread and to cause change. But as they increased, so did their effects: the more the tools, the faster the rate of change."

We already knew that technology has been part of our daily living. Wherever we go we see and we use technology. The importance of technology has been recognized by man way back in the ancient times. It has become a part of our system. Its evolution has helped us perk up our lives. And the progress of technology had built a conduit between man and nature. (Wikipedia, 2008) delineates technology as a broad concept that deals with an animal species’ usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species’ ability to control and adapt to its environment. The man’s usage of technology started with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools.

Our ancestors have developed different technologies for their day by day living. It has been difficult to them to live at ease without any tools to use. That is why they created technologies to make their lives easier, as a way out to their dilemma. In addition, they have developed an assortment of technologies that led us to what we make use of in the present day. For the reasons that, according to the Wikipedia (2008) were it states that technology enables greater knowledge of international issues, values, and cultures. This is due mostly to mass transportation and mass media, the world seems to be a much smaller place, and due to the following, among others: globalization of ideas, firstly, then the embeddedness of values, the growth of population and control, and many others

The presence of technology had a definite effect to ones society. According to (Wikipedia, 2008) that technology has helped develop more advance economies and has allowed the rise of a leisure class. In addition to that the implementations of technology influence the values of a society and new technology often raises new ethical questions. It is the rise of conception of efficiency in terms of human productivity. And lastly, the technological processes produce unwanted by-products such as pollution, and deplete natural resources to the detriment of the Earth and its environment.

The technology and society had a synergistic relationship. This relationship occurred long time ago. The bloom of this relationship is from the invention of simple tools until it continuous development (continues until modern technologies) that we using today. If I were to give an example of a technology to present the effect of it to the society is the mobile phone. Human had wondered how to improve communication. They are curious on how to talk to their special someone from a far away place. Before, the communication takes a long time. They use a messenger to relay the message from one person to another person where the distance between the two (the sender and the receiver) is seven mountains apart. And then, as time flies by, the communication evolved, from mailing of letter to telegram to phone. People are always wondering how to make communication faster and better. With this mentality of man had led us to the development of mobile phone. The development of mobile phone had a great influence in the society and the way people live their daily life. Still man is still wondering for improvements to communication.

Technology had encouraged the development of more elaborate economies. It has said that technology is inseparable to human society and every implementation of technology influences the values of a society by changing the expectations and realities. According to the Wikipedia (2008) that there are three major values that is affected with technological innovations: the mechanical world view, efficiency and social progress as stated by McGinn (1991). This is for the reason that in every implementation of new technology there is nothing that cannot be understood by human intelligence. Human is very adaptable. And also man is always expecting for a higher and higher percentage of output, ability or performance so that man develops machines that are efficient and could reach this expectations. In addition to that, man developed technologies to make their lives easier. And with this there is a social progress between people and this is the beneficent, kind or generous thing that man could gain from it.

The development of technology simplifies our life. It gives rise of a leisure class. An informed society can make quicker responses to events and trends. Technology sets more complex learning tasks and increases multi-tasking. It offers greater specialization in jobs and it also offers cheaper prices. The above mentioned are the benefits we gain from new innovations but in some ways technology complicates our lives. For example, pollution and structural unemployment that is according to Wikipedia (2008).

Technologies have had a great effect to every society. There have been huge demands for competent people that are knowledgeable to technology. Or people who have the skills. But unfortunately in the Philippines though our country is adapting to the fast changing world when it comes to technology is having a problem regarding to the production of competent people who has the right skills. With this the Philippine government is looking for ways to address this matter. In order to produce globally competent and skilled workers they introduced a ladderized curriculum that matches the other countries’ standards probably the American standard. It is implemented to every school, universities and other institutions whose goals are to produce technically skilled graduates. It will serve as a guide of what should be taught and as a guide of what are the needed skills outside or inside the country.

Time by time the innovations regarding technology evolves. There is a continuous advancement of these technologies. These advanced technologies are what the big or small companies use or adapts. These rapid changes in technology also make them ask for skilled people. The hiring and accepting of new employees should be modernized where the advancement of technology is utilized well. The companies’ acceptance or the hiring of an employee should go to a thorough training so that it could meet the demands.

Wherever you look at technology is always present. In every company, their have been a competition and technology has played a significant role in it. They may not take a glance of it before but however they had taken a notice the importance of technology to their success. That goes the same to government. No one had expected that the technology would have a huge impact to our society as wide as this. Producing people with competency through trainings and ladderized curriculum. The advancement of the technology pushes every company to be more creative in maximizing technology as well as the available resources.

The Philippines had embraced the evolution of technology and had make use of it. Their have a big demands of technology skilled people. The world is need of these kinds of people. The country is need of these kinds of people in order to survive these global competitions. Technology is with us even before. Utilizing the availability of resources in the country is the foundation in addressing the countries’ skills in the continuous advancement in technology sectors.

References:

1. Wikipedia (2008). “Technology and Society.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_and_society [accessed 15 December 2008]
2. Wikipedia (2008). “Technology.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology [accessed 16 December 2008]
3. The Impact of Technology on Society. http://education.llnl.gov/bep/socsci/a/timpact.html
4. Burke, James. Connections. Boston: Little , Brown, and Co., 1985
5. Burke, James. The Day the Universe Changed. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1985