About Modern Technology

Most people in the developed world live in an environment that is totally dominated by and interwoven with modern technology. We live in centrally heated houses that incorporate many high-tech materials, eat scientifically engineered food, travel at high speeds in motorized vehicles, and communicate to a greater and greater extent by electronic means. Technology is having a profound effect on the natural environment, on interpersonal dynamics, and on our minds. As it becomes ever more dominant, it becomes increasingly important to assess technology's effects critically, and to understand both its benefits and its inherent dangers.

Beginnings:

Although human beings have always used technology of one sort or another, "modern technology," in the sense that the term is generally used, began with the Industrial Revolution in the mid-eighteenth century. This era saw a massive cultural shift away from hand- , community- and craft-based methods of production and toward centralized, depersonalized and automated means of manufacture. The second major shift toward the technological world that we live in today occurred with the advent of the transistor and computer technology in the mid-20th century.

Culture and Technology:

The effect of technology on culture is so widespread that most people are not consciously aware of it. Because it is so present in every aspect of our lives, we tend to live inside of a technological matrix and give little thought to how it might be shaping our society and ourselves. Modern technology is the basis of rapid and easy transportation, global communication, preserved food and most medical intervention, all of which have a profound effect on our lives. These effects include multiculturalism, increased population, urbanization and a general shift away from family and cultural repetition toward a fast-paced, anonymous society.

Computers:

It is difficult to overestimate the effect of computers on our world. The invention of the transistor in 1947 began a historical shift toward smaller, cheaper and more universal technology that in the coming years may transform the world beyond recognition. Today, with the ubiquity of computers, mobile telephones, pagers and satellite communications, true solitude is becoming a thing of the past. Human consciousness is networking itself ever more tightly into a global consciousness in which the smallest minutiae of a life become fodder for public discussion.

Benefits:

Modern technology has overcome many of the difficulties of human life. The invention of penicillin has prevented millions of deaths from disease and infection. Labor-saving machines do the drudgery that used to require the toil of thousands. Printing, distribution and electronic technologies have allowed books and information of all kinds to penetrate every level of society. For nearly anyone with the motivation to seek them, opportunities are present in far greater number than for most people of earlier times.

Dangers:

Every benefit has its price. The more blatant effects of technology are well known: The devastating assault on the natural world, climate change, the dangers of excessively processed food, poorly understood chemical hazards, and the social alienation that comes with huge cities and anonymous lives. In addition to these, there are the more subtle and little understood dangers that occur within the human mind. The increasing pace of contemporary life leads to stress and burnout, and the tidal wave of information that is entering people's lives, if not properly managed, can lead to disorientation and despair.