Technology and Modern Society
Impact of Technology on Social Interaction
The Internet since its emergence until now continues to shape how human interactions and cultures are evolved because of how media and modern communications have dismantled unseen walls of social interaction. Many users of the Internet can easily say and do things they want, and share it among netizens without any legal or formal repurcussions due to anonymity. Thomas Wells explained that the Internet can advantageous as it can revolutionize how socialization and barriers of communication can be extinguished, and it can be disadvantageous as the Internet can lead to a loss of privacy, impersonal communications, and social isolation.
It is very clear that with the use of modern social media applications, a lot of people have been exposed to different societies, cultures, practices, dogmas, beliefs, and opinionated expressions. Some of these contents can be beneficial to the human mind as it introduces different weights and impacts for learnings and knowledge; while other contents can bring harm and do no good to one's personal well-being.
Globalization and Technology
In the 20th century, the turbelence of change in the exchange of goods and trades have skyrockted due to globalization - a term used to describe how countries and societies have become more connected and interdependent through the exchange of products, market, services, and manpower. With the advent of technological advances countries have become versatile to import or export certain goods to supply the demand of their own local market.
Globalization has also increased chances of different peoples with diverse backgrounds and culture to become interconnected thru the use of the Internet. Furthermore, the Internet has also many perks it brought the digital economy where netizens can exchange goods and services. These include advertising by social media influencers, e-sports (gaming) by streamers and celebrity gamers, and acquiring/selling games from/to consumers.
Maritime trades have helped spread globalization where shipment of cargamento can be brought from one local country to a foreign, where it will land into the local market to exchange goods and services.
Ethical Dilemmas in Adopting Technology
It is very good that smartphones have become an extension of daily human life. Many people use it as an alarm clock, camera, news source, entertainment, and other fulfilling activities which bring excitement into a rather, sometimes boring and mundane life. However, it is important to note that while it is easier to Google and search for ideas or products our privacy have become lesser and lesser.
Big companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are always harvesting user data to create business analytics and implement new strategies in enticing their userbase to keep consuming and purchasing their newline of products and services.
A lot of users can easily Google to look for a new smartphone, however a cost is at hand because telemetry data is always being collected and mined by a server which is sent to third-party companies that is then sold to big name companies.
It is a terrifying thought that while we have legal laws and user agreements to declare "Terms of Use" and "Privacy" we still do not know the extent of how or when these big companies are harvesting, analyzing, and selling user data. It begs the question, when will they stop?
Workplace and AI Transformation
We now have hundreds to thousands of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools which have really disrupted the job market in the past year until now. A lot of redundant work can now be easily transformed into an output with a single prompt as an input.
Artists, on the other hand, are also struggling because of AI image generators through prompts and stable diffusion. One may simply think, that there are no artists anymore since everyone is. This may simply be sounding nihilistic however, human artists can still produce art which machines don't have - a soul in a piece of art.
AI is only a tool. It can never replace programmers, software engineers, or designers. It is simply a new tool that can be utilized with creativity and productivity. We can use AI to automate redudant or boring tasks so, we can focus more on the productive and solving side manner.
Health and Well-Being in the Digital Age
A lot of us are always looking for human intimacy and connection however, our own "social" media applications have simply brought a division among us, or rather an invisible barrier that separated most peope due differences in beliefs, opinionated expressions, and maybe because they are dumb to realize factual evidence vs. bandwagon just so they could belong in a group or tribe.
After all, we humans have always been social creatures yet, in this modern day and era we have simply become normalized with isolation and exclusion sometimes not reaching out to others anymore. Pessimitic as it sounds may be, we always find new ways to stay interconnected and keep our social relationships healthy. It can be the simple act of a text message, or a chat using Instagram or Messenger, and even being silly such as sending goofy memes or the like to your signifcant other.
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