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Monday, October 28, 2019
The Influence of Technology on Society and the Economy Essay Example for Free
The Influence of Technology on Society and the Economy Essay The nature of technology possessed by a society happens to be the defining characteristic of the self same society. Thus, the Stone Age, the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, the Industrial Age, and the Information Age are very appropriate terms used to define the nature of human society in different times (â€Å"Technology,†2007).  Man’s living standards are to known to have been improving with new technologies cropping up as a result of his own efforts. Thus, new technologies are also known to have a positive effect on the economy.  At the same time, however, it is a fact that those who do not use the new technologies also do not experience the greatest socioeconomic benefits of the new technologies. This is the reason why man in the Information Age is presently observing the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots (Friedman, 2000).     The Iron Age saw man using tools that were superior to those of the Stone Age. Therefore, both the Iron Age and the Bronze Age increased man’s standard of living. The tools that were made in the Iron Age and the Bronze Age led to an increase in efficiency as well as productivity. By knowing how to make different objects with iron and bronze, man was also able to increase trade with his neighbors. The introduction of new goods and services by way of trade automatically translated into higher standards of living than before.     Thus, new technologies must always translate into higher standards of living. The sixteenth century saw new inventions that revolutionized manufacturing and other features of living. The wheel-lock musket, the helicopter, the spinning wheel, the pocket watch, the diving bell, the seed drill, the camera obscura, the knitting machine, the compound microscope, the Gregorian Calendar, and the enameling of pottery were all brought into the world in the same century (â€Å"Timeline†). All of these new technologies were not only used in trade, but also became a part of people’s daily lives. As a matter of fact, at this point in time we cannot even imagine a world without these objects to help us out with our everyday routines. Hence, society becomes dependent on technology that it has used successfully in the past.     The late eighteenth and the nineteenth century saw the beginning of the Industrial Revolution – a highly exciting time for man. During the Industrial Revolution, man learned how to manufacture goods and services faster than before, and at lower costs of production. The introduction of manufacturing machinery was undoubtedly a gigantic leap in the world of production. More importantly, the enhancement in efficiency and productivity experienced during that time grew the economy by leaps and bounds. All the same, the industrialized nations at the time were separated from the non-industrialized nations that lacked the expertise for developing machinery. The industrialized nations had to export the machinery to the non-industrialized nations. However, they could only sell machinery to the non-industrialized nations when the latter found themselves in a position to pay for them.     Technologies developed in the last century have similarly influenced society. The following passage explains some of the influences of the latest technologies on society:         Technology-driven changes have been particularly evident in the past century.    Automobiles have created a more mobile, spread-out society; aircraft and improved    communications have led to a smaller world and, eventually, globalization; contraception    has revolutionized sexual mores; and improved sanitation, agriculture, and medicine have    extended life expectancy.  A technologically literate person recognizes the rate of technology    in these changes and accepts the reality that the future will be different from the present    largely because of technologies now coming into existence, from Internet-based activities to    genetic engineering and cloning (â€Å"Technology†). Following the Industrial Revolution, the Internet Revolution was the next most exciting technological change experienced by society. Turning the world into a ‘global village’ where people around the world could communicate with each other at low costs and at any time, the Internet also revolutionized the way business is conducted. Today, consumers from around the world may purchase goods sold online from almost any nation. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the shopping experiences on people’s travels when people could only be excited about foreign goods whilst traveling in foreign lands. Businesses from around the world have grown tremendously because of the Internet. The ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan explained some of the benefits of the Internet and other new technologies back in the year 2000:         The relationship between businesses and consumers already is being changed by the    expanding opportunities for e-commerce.  The forces unleashed by the Internet are almost    surely to be even more potent within and among businesses, where uncertainties are being    reduced by improving the quantity, the reliability, and the timeliness of information.  This is    the case in many recent initiatives, especially among our more seasoned companies, to    consolidate and rationalize their supply chains using the Internet. Not all technologies, information or otherwise, however, increase productivityâ€â€that is,    output per hourâ€â€by reducing the inputs necessary to produce existing products.  Some new    technologies bring about new goods and services with above average value added per    workhour. The dramatic advances in biotechnology, for example, are significantly increasing    a broad range of productivity-expanding efforts in areas from agriculture to medicine.         Indeed, in our dynamic labor markets, the resources made redundant by better    information†¦are being drawn to the newer activities and newer products, many never before    contemplated or available.  The personal computer, with ever-widening applications in homes    and businesses, is one.  So are the fax and the cell phone.  The newer biotech innovations are    most especially of this type, particularly the remarkable breadth of medical and    pharmacological product development (â€Å"Remarks,†2000). New technologies are enhancing man’s ability to create products and services of value. In the boundless ocean of the digital culture, everything should appear as a blessing. But, there are problems that the economy must face alongside the blessings. In the music industry, for instance, the digital age has been seen as a mixed blessing. Because of piracy or MP3’s, whichever name we give to the mixed blessing of the digital economy as it concerns the music industry, the digital economy is presently not in a state to flourish as much as possible even if the steadily rising numerical figures related to the growth of electronic commerce tell us another tale (Muhammad, 1999).     As mentioned previously, another problem facing the global economy in our times is the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, similar to the one experienced during the Industrial Revolution. According to Friedman, those who are able to use the chip technology most productively today are naturally the winners in the global economy. As compared to these successful nations and businesses are those suffering from the symptoms of Microchip Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which include economic slackness, along with a deficiency to increase the use of knowledge (Friedman). This is the reason why the World Trade Organization acts as a protestor of globalization – which is driven by the World Wide Web – on behalf of the poor nations whenever these nations are threatened by it (Lipsey, 2006). Also according to Friedman, the wealth of the prosperous Bill Gates was at one point equal to the total net worth of at least a hundred million poorest of Americans. Another fact to explain the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots during the globalized Internet Age is that in the United States, the incomes of one-fifth of the poorest working families dropped between 1979 and 1995 by at least 21%, for the simple reason that they did not know how to adopt the new technology. What is more, the incomes of one-fifth of the richest Americans increased by almost 30% during the same time period (Friedman).     Still, new technologies are known to be responsible for growing the economy by increasing organizational effectiveness, that is, in the organizations that can afford the new technologies. Organizational effectiveness is for the organization to be doing everything that it knows how to do, and to be doing it well. The organization knows how to manage its employees, and to manufacture the products or provide the services that it originally set out to manufacture or provide. However, in order to be effective in its operations, the organization should be managing its employees well, and manufacturing good quality products or providing high quality services to its customers. In the organizational environment of today, the organization that is effective in its operations must be effectively using information technology. This is, in fact, one of the requirements of organizational effectiveness in our times (Helms).     The computer software designed for the organization in our time helps to organize plans, letters, legal documents, articles, and countless other files as well as indispensable documents. In other words, software can help to modernize as well as simplify the whole process of working with computer documents (â€Å"New Software,†2006). This helps the organization to do its job well, seeing that computer software is designed to perform routine tasks that humans might perform only with mistakes because they dislike and get easily wearied performing monotonous tasks. Additionally, time is money in the business world.  By using computer software to handle routine tasks with speed, the rich organization is using its human resources at jobs that only skilled human beings would be able to handle. Thus, everything at the organization runs well. The computer software does its own job excellently, while the skilled human beings, without wasting time on routine tasks that computers can handle, perform jobs that computers cannot do. Hence, computer software adds to the skills and specializations at the workplace, which in turn help to increase production, thereby benefiting the economy.     At the same time, however, it should be remembered that everybody in society does not benefit when the economy grows thanks to new technology. Rather, the rich get richer and the poor become poorer. This is the reason why the Internet Age has failed to raise the standards of living of the poorest people in the globe. References Friedman, T. L. (2000). The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization. New York: Anchor Books. Helms, M. M. Defining Organizational Effectiveness. Retrieved 28 October 2007, from http://www.daltonstate.edu/faculty/mhelms/citizen/2001_10_28.html. Lipsey, R. G. (2006, April 4). Don’t Give Up On WTO: Fix It. YaleGlobal. Muhammad, T. K. (1999, March). Leaders Of The Digital Economy. Black Enterprise, Vol. 29. New software is first of its kind; Solves file organization problems encountered by all computer users. (2006, September 14). M2 Presswire. Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan. (2000, January 13). The Federal Reserve Board. Retrieved 28 October 2007, from http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2000/200001132.htm. Technology Shaped By and Shaping Society. (2007). The National Academies. Retrieved 28 October 2007, from http://www.nae.edu/nae/techlithome.nsf/weblinks/KGRG-55SQTT?OpenDocument. Timeline 16th Century. Magic Dragon Multimedia. Retrieved 28 October 2007, from http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/timeline16.html.
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