ENGLISH 1A

In Class Essay 2

Changing Reality: Technology and Culture

 

Technological change is not a new invention. Since the discovery of fire, stone tools, written language, or the automobile, technological innovations have transformed culture. In modern times, the computer is the impetus of an evolving culture.  Much like how the automobile transformed the lifestyle and possibilities of the late 19th century, the computer and ensuing digital media are completely changing how we behave, what we value, and what is possible, effectively redefining reality.  Technology is ever changing our culture, and while we may lose what we once valued, it also may no longer be valuable. Technological innovation is the catalyst of cultural evolution, and while for better or worse, without such fundamental catalysts society would stagnate and become obsolete.

 

Critics of the current digital age cite the computer and the resulting slew of digital media as the sources of a social catastrophe of herculean proportion. Fears of a digital age include that immersion in cyberspace results in a “ ‘culture of simulation.’ A place where a word like ‘authenticity’ may no longer even apply,” (Lasn, 46). There is fear of a culture of utterly disconnected from reality, a culture of egocentricity and nonexistent interpersonal connection. These fears are not unfounded, as society, especially children and young adults, spend on average 50 hours a week using or receiving digital media. It seems as though a disproportionate amount of time (sometimes whole days and nights such as is the norm in South Korea's PC cafes) is spent on unproductive digital games, neither enhancing the players intelligence nor inspiring them to create new innovations beneficial to society, or engaging in the physical world. If a society's technologies are not fostering the skills or interests necessary to create new technologies, it seems logical that this evolution is leading towards a cultural collapse. It seems true that “technology [is] causing a ‘mighty change’ in… ‘modes of thought and feeling.  Men are growing mechanical in head and heart, as well as in hand,’” (What the Luddites Really Fought Against).  If the result of a technology meant to further connection between individuals backfires and in fact distances them, then it may indeed call for serious questioning of the ways in which we use the technologies at hand and their purpose in our culture.

 

While it is legitimate and even imperative to question change and established ideas about ingrained cultural forces, resulting fears are not necessarily indicative of a society headed towards social demise. A perception of a “mechanization” of humanity has held fast for as long as there has been technological change.  While technology may be progressing at great speed, human genetics, and thus at least half of the motivation for human behavior, is evolving much more slowly. At our very foundation, humans are still tribal creatures, dependent on close human connections as means for survival.  As such, humans for the most part crave relationships with others in order to feel secure and valuable. While some may cite the computer as a mechanism for distancing humans from one another, it is also connective in many ways, allowing for the formation and maintenance of supplemental “tribes”. For example, as a result of development in transportation technologies, family members nowadays often live in different towns, states, or countries. With development in computer technology we can remain connected to our “tribe”, our family members, almost as if we are doing so face-to-face even if they live on the other side of the world. It is interesting to think how the same technology can be used in ways that both advance the society as well hinder it. While computers and related technologies have made possible such feats as space travel, mapping of the human genome, and translating eye movement to speech as with Stephen Hawking, they have also been responsible for ceaseless video gaming, and a virtual end to privacy. Although society may use or abuse the technology, it is not necessarily the technology that is either helpful or harmful, but rather the ways in which the culture decides to use it.  As humans are the ones manipulating technological advancement, the technology may indeed progress in a way that advances humans and human interests.

 

When new technology of great significance is created, it changes not only the problem it was created to solve, but also alters and advances the society. Advancement is a subjective term. How can one say that we are advancing as a society when as a result of technological use we become in effect “tools of our tools” (Postman, 306); at the mercy of the inventions that were supposed to enhance our lives? Human advancement is ambiguous to those who are currently advancing. Historically, until the advent of transformative technology, what was “real” was limited to the visible surrounding natural world: the human interactions we faced, the things we saw, the food we ate. However, with technological advancement, reality is altered to include the previously unreal products of currently real entities. The foundations of technology for computers redefined reality, and made the impossible possible. Even with basic inventions, such as giving quantitative measurements to qualitative ideas in the form of grading, reality is altered to reflect that technology.  It is due to select technological advances that society is spurned forward, and able to create new knowledge. When “fundamental inventions overturn the cultures that created them and bring forth whole new ones in there place,” (299, Gordon), society finds itself at the precipice of a new era, in which the culture will evolve as a result of new technology.  This evolution results in a need to redefine cultural norms, and even going further, “alter... a culture[‘s] sense…of what is the natural order of things, of what is reasonable, of what is necessary, of what is inevitable, of what is real,” (Postman, 312).  When a tool is so powerful as to change the scope of reality for a culture and even a species, that tool calls into question the validity of reality as a concept. If reality, the basis of what consider tangible and significant, is subject to change because of our creations, it follows that perhaps the purpose of culture is to use and develop these technological creations to push the limits of reality, weather it be the digital or physical one. 

Society often fears change, especially when that change calls into question established cultural norms of what is valuable and what is real. A fear of change derives from our need for self-preservation, and the unknown poses a threat to that goal.

 

However, “once a technology is admitted it plays out its hand,” (Postman, 308), and so no matter how desperately skeptics and Luddites may want to break modern machines, they will likely be unable to do so. Our culture has already been changed by old and new technologies, both for better and worse, and will continue to transform the technologies at the same time the technologies transform it.  However, despite the mixed results of new technology, the human culture is evolving in a direction of greater access to knowledge, and greater power to express that knowledge and generate influential change. Even if change in knowledge and culture is displayed within the confines of a digital screen rather than the printed or spoken word, the evolution of a new culture is imperative to its overall continuation. It is important for our culture to be aware of the behaviors that may spurn new innovations, and those that may cause human advancement to exist only within a computer's software, and to foster debate about which is valuable to pursue. It is possible that due to technological development, two very real realities will exist (and to an extent already do)- the digital and the physical reality, and important to realize that one need not be neglected in favor of the other, but rather a certain balance between the two achieved.  Despite the positive change cultural evolution may evoke, society must look upon cultural transformation with open and questioning eyes, and be aware of both its merits and dangers.

 

 

Reflection

 

Through the readings and the documentary I learned a lot about how people are perceiving the changes in the ways we use computers, and the different ways in which people are adapting to the change. I thought this unit was eye-opening because I hadn't given much thought before to the cultural evolution that is taking place right now. I think that because computers have become such a huge part of modern life, they are going to continue to affect the way in which the society is structured, including the education system and different jobs. I'm especially interested in, and this unit got me thinking about, how computer integration is going to change education, and future schools. 

 

I think that this essay was not as strong as the first essay I wrote. I felt like I was developing my ideas on the topic as I went along, rather than knowing clearly what I wanted to say from the beginning. I think I could have done a better job giving my quotes more context, rather than mostly weaving them into my sentences. As I was editing my essay I tried not to end up with three body paragraphs, but I found it quite difficult to find where to separate ideas, if I should separate them, and to even structure a non 5-paragraph essay. I think that I need to break out of the high school 5-P essay format and think about grouping ideas in different ways.