When people think about technology from a contemporary perspective, they often think about all the gadgets and devices that are common-place in our lives. For example, only ten years ago we were watching movies on VCR's and were talking on cell phones that would be unrecognizable compared to today's standards. Is this the essence of technology, or is there more to it? Technology has been something that has undoubtedly marked our world and our lives for a very long time and especially since the industrial revolution occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Major changes occurred in the way the world produced its goods, and the level at which goods were produced. Science and technology began changing the world. How then are we to view technology today? It is clearly a phenomenon that as been influencing the world for any centuries. Is it any different today than it was one or two hundred years ago?
[...] What can be seen here is that Misa and Toffler share the same sort of idea about technology and its effect on culture and society? By saying that technology was creating a fundamental shift in the way that organizations were being structured, he is acknowledging the importance of technology and how it has the potential to impact culture and society in profound ways. Much like Misa, Toffler offers a suggestion of the same nature in terms of where he thinks the future of technology needs to go. [...]
[...] This book was intended to give insight into the future of technology and how it will affect culture and society if it is left to take the course that it was presently on. It is interesting to study this book almost forty years after it was written because we can evaluate his predictions based on what has actually transpired. He predicted that several trends would begin to occur that would essentially change the nature of the world system, and significantly change the world for those living in it. [...]
[...] Technology has forever proven to be the tool of drastic social, political and cultural change, and this fact is not likely to change in this generation, or generations to come. As such, technology must be harnessed in the proper way so that we can adequately deal with the challenges that our world in undoubtedly facing, and going to face in the future. (Misa, 2004). Misa acknowledges that there is no shortage of theorists out there who have provided different opinions of the technology. [...]
[...] David Edgerton wrote the book The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900. This book asks readers to view technology in a different way than the other two theorists appear to have. Edgerton claims that his interpretation of the history of technology and culture is superior to that of the other theories that have been given on the subject. He says that as a society we have all erred in the way we view and talk about technology. [...]
[...] The reality is that our world has been steadily influenced by technologies of history, and the fact that we are seeing and doing things (thorough technology) now that has never occurred before does not mean that technology is currently exploding. In fact it is progressing at the same rate as it always has. This argument comes in conflict with that of Toffler, and even to a small extent that of Misa. (Edgerton, 2007). Edgerton explains that the way many theorists err is by analysing technology in the wrong way. [...]
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