The Relationship Between Mind and Technology

8/3/2019 The Relationship Between Mind and Technology

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The relationship between mind and technology

There are many theories which suggest how tointerpret technology. Most of these theories

involve the relationship between technology and society; prompting questions about agency and

determinism. The school of thought thatThorstein Veblencalled technological determinism

interprets technology as a force largely beyond our control that shapes our history and

culture.The implication that our tools somehow control us led to a reaction; in

the instrumentalist view, technology is interpreted as a means to an end.James Carey,

in Communication as Culturewrites: Technology is technology; it is a means for communication

and transportation over space, and nothing more.

The influence of the Internet has caused a change in the way we communicate, learn and shop. The

Internet is probably most famous for the ability to spread information, fact or fiction. We were once

limited to news editors of a local paper, then to national cable news.

There is no question that easy access to the Internet, like the introduction of mail service and the

invention of the telephone, has changed the nature of people's connection to others in their social

world. Mail made possible connections among people without physical proximity, and the telephone

facilitated communication among distant people, making rapid connections possible across long

distances.

But has this communication revolution changed the pure nature of interpersonal and group

processes?

On the one hand, since the primary use of the Internet is communication, some people mightspeculate that the Internet will have positive social consequences in people's everyday lives

because it increases the frequency and quality of interpersonal communications among people.

People with easy access to others would feel better connected and more strongly supported by

others, leading to happiness and engagement in families, organizations, communities, and society

more generally.

But, on the other hand, the ease of electronic communication may lead to weaker social ties,

because people have less reason to leave their homes and actually interact face to face with other

people. The Internet allows people to more easily work from their home, to form and sustainfriendships and even romantic attachments from their home, to bank from their home, to vote and

engage in political and social issue based discussions with others (from home).

In this variety of ways, Internet communications can potentially displace face-to-face

communications. I think this point is important because psychologists in many researchers have
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described and proved such face to face and telephone connections as being of higher quality, when

viewed in terms of their contribution to satisfaction and well-being.

Reading a series of longitudinal and experimental studies (ex. McKenna, Green, and Gleason), who

test a theory of relationship formation on the Internet, these researchers directly address the

argument that the psychological quality of Internet social interaction is lower than is the

psychological quality of traditional face-to-face interaction.

Consider my own use. I've received several e-mail messages in the past hour. My boyfriend

confirms the dinner for tonight. Even though it is weekend, my colleagues send me questions about

the pending exam expects a quick answer. So does some graduate student from Europe that I

recently met on "MySpace" with an urgent request for a letter of recommendation. My friend Ksenija

sends me an IM to tell me the latest news about her new love. And so on and so on I assume that I

am also living a virtual life, and what's the most interesting of all, all of my friends online, are also my

friends in real life. And if they weren't that in the past, I somehow managed to bring my cyber friends

into my real life, so I could here in my real life enable real communication, real face-to-face "talks",

real exchange of emotions, feelings of happiness, satisfaction and well-being. I'd say for me, the

Internet is a great new way for doing old things.

So, what else conclusion can I bring except the one that Internet life cannot stand on itself without

real-life communication. It is simple: If we understand the qualities of face-to-face communication

that influence the impact of such communication on people and their social interaction, we would be

able to predict the probable influence of any new communication technology.

However, researchers show that people sooner or later convert their cyber contacts into more

traditional face-to-face, the same as I do. People use the Internet, in other words to help them

achieve their real-life goals. And rather than technology's changing people's social and psychological

reality, in other words, people change their use of technology to facilitate their creation of a desired

social reality.

Internet users should closely examine their behavior, to ensure that excessive time online will not

negatively impact their personal well-being. We shouldn't throw our computers out the window, but

neither should we charge on blindly into complete dependence on the Internet. As with many thingsin life, it seems that moderation and balance are key to maximizing the Internet's positive effect.

http://www.helium.com/items/648679-study-questions-social-effects-of-internet-communication

Common examples of communication technologies for communication purposes are telephones, cell

phones, and computers.
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The telephone brought people closer together in the sense that distance did not inhibit a phone call, but it

also had an unanticipated effect, according to some early studies that people spent less time actually in

each other's presence. Starting in the 1890s people began to replace visiting with telephone calls, which

were briefer and less personal. It is tempting to use such evidence to decide that human beings are

becoming progressively alienated from one another, and that machines have interposed themselves

between them. Rather than conclude that networked communication substitutes for personal contact, one

can just as easily argue that they amplify and preserve already established relationships. One can

conclude the telephone was used to alleviate loss of contact caused by increasing demands on people's

time to those in the community.

Millions of people go online daily. Rather than isolating users in a virtual world, the Internet extends

communities in the real world. The Internet is used to connect people in individualized and flexible social

networks rather than in fixed and grounded groups. Some dedicate most of their l ives to the online

community. The Internet supplants activities, like watching television, rather than other forms of social l ife.

In addition to communication, the Internet has become an important source of information. Tourist use the

internet to find directions for popular hot spots, students use the internet as an educational tool for

schoolwork, and shoppers use the internet to stay connected to distanced friends and relatives by e-mail,

chat or Instant Messaging (IM). By using the Internet it both expands communities and changes it in

subtle ways.

It was found that Internet medium does not replace the telephone medium, which is used as the primary

source of communities. Internet users still use the telephone to keep in contact with those close to them.

In fact, research has showed that most of the people who use Instant Messaging are found to be those

whom you have a face-to-face relationship with. The Internet can connect communities through free

websites likeWelcome to the town, andIcqpeople.

There is debate as to whether the Internet isolates users or connects them to more social networks.

Some believe that Internet use at home has a strong negative impact on time spent with friends and

family as well as time spent on social activities, but Internet use at work has no such effect. Similarly,

Internet use during weekend days is more strongly related to decreased time spent with friends and

family and on social activities than Internet use during weekdays. Time online is largely an asocial activity

that competes with, rather than complements, face to-face social time. However, it is the location and

timing of Internet use that determines how interpersonal relationships are affected.

Advantage

The Internet connects communities through many online websites. It connects neighbours who would not

communicate face to face, but would online via email or Instant Messaging because of chat groups that

connect you to those in your geographic locations.
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Conclusion

Although Internet use is on the rise telephone usage will always be the primary access to reach those in

your community. The strength of communities does not diminish because of Internet use, cell phones, or

telephone use. There is no correlation among the sources. There is no solid evidence to conclude that

Internet use is breaking community bonds because individuals still socialize outside of Internet use.

The information age

also commonly known as the computer age or digital age, is an idea that the current age will be

characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to

knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously. The idea is linked to the

concept of a digital age or digital revolution, and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry

that theindustrial revolutionbrought through industrialization, to an economy based on the manipulation

of information, i.e., aninformation society.

Relation to ECONOMICS

Eventually,Information and Communication Technologycomputers, computerized machinery, fiber

optics, communication satellites, Internet, and other ICT toolsbecame a significant part of the economy.

Microcomputers were developed and many business and industries were greatly changed by ICTNicholas

Negropontecaptured the essence of these changes in his 1995 book,Being Digital.[4]

His book discusses

similarities and differences between products made of atoms and products made of bits. In essence, one

can very cheaply and quickly make a copy of a product made of bits, and ship it across the country or

around the world both quickly and at very low cost.

Impact on Workforce

The impact on jobs and income distribution

The information age has impacted the workforce in several ways. First, it has created a situation in which

workers who perform tasks which are easily automated are being forced to find work which involves tasks

that are not easily automated. Second, workers are being forced to compete in a global job market. Lastly

workers are being replaced by computers that can do the job more effectively and faster. This creates

problems for workers in industrial societies.

Jobs traditionally associated with the middle class (assembly line workers, data processors, foremen, and

supervisors) are beginning to disappear, either through outsourcing orautomation. Individuals who lose

their jobs must either move up, joining a group of mind workers (engineers, attorneys, scientists,

professors, executives, journalists, consultants), or settle for low-skill, low-wage service jobs.
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The mind workers form about 20% of the workforce. They are able to compete successfully in the world

market and command high wages. Conversely, production workers and service workers in industrialized

nations are unable to compete with workers in developing countries and either lose their jobs through

outsourcing or are forced to accept wage cuts.[5]

In addition, the internet makes it possible for workers in

developing countries to provide in-person services and compete directly with their counterparts in other

nations.

This has had several major consequences:

Growing income inequality in industrial countries

Increased opportunity in developing countries

The globalization of the workforce

The rise of information-intensive industry and "the new

entrepreneurialism"

Industry is becoming more information-intensive and less labor and capital-intensive. This trend has

important implications for the workforce; workers are becoming increasingly productive as the value of

their labor decreases. However, there are also important implications for capitalism itself; not only is the

value of labor decreased, the value of capital is also diminished. In the classical model, investments

inhuman capitalandfinancial capitalare important predictors of the performance of a new

venture.However, as demonstrated byMark Zuckerbergand Facebook, it now seems possible for a

group of relatively inexperienced people with limited capital to succeed on a large scale

The economic impact of information technology

The economic impact ofinformation technologyhas been a subject of a great deal of debate.For business economists, it is useful to identify how information technology (IT) is likely toimpact the economy, because IT (defined as computer andcommunications technologyandits applications) is likely to have a substantial impact on the economy's growth during thecoming decades. The reason for this is the use of IT by nearly al lindustriesin the economy'sbase, so that IT becomes a universal input to nearly all other outputs. If IT costs decline,they can create substantial economic gains for many of the industries that use IT, becausemoney spent on IT can be invested in other inputs and improvements in production or

services. Furthermore, because business relies upon IT to do a wide range of tasks and tocreate competitive advantage, by facilitating these tasks for end users, important gains areachieved that are difficult to measure in a classic input-output framework. In addition, IT,seen in a larger context, should have even wider impacts on the economy, because newchannels of communications, such as the Internet, cellular television, and broadbandapplications, will provide business with new channels to reach customers and suppliers.
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Impact of New Information and CommunicationTechnologies (ICTs) on Socio-economic andEducational Development of Africa and the Asia-

Pacifice: PrivateThis preliminary research on ICT adoption in Africa and the Asia-Pacific suggests that

there are serious barriers to their use in educational and socioeconomic

development, such as issues of infrastructure support, access to the ICTs, training

and skills development, and hierarchical social relations which determine who has

access to ICTs. Generally ICTs are considered appropriate, even though there remain

concerns over economic priorities, basic needs or computers.

However, the implementation of ICTs is occurring in a context where the cultural and institutional barriers arenot well addressed. The assumption often made is that if one just purchases a few computers and modems,

a post-industrial society can magically result. Africans and those in the Asia-Pacific are generally in the

position of consumers and thus in a position where they cannot yet define the media in their terms.

At the same time, conservative attitudes entrenched in Asia-Pacific countries and concern over basic

needs inhibit appreciation of the importance of new ICTs. For example, in Fiji and the Philippines, people

believe ICTs are not the most important needs in their societies and that people can always find a way to

get along if ICT use becomes a matter of "life and death".

Basic education, equipping schools with enough texts and reducing the teacher-student ratio, and seeing

culturally relevant programs on television seem to be the major concerns of most of the respondents.

There is also fear that the Internet could corrupt the morals of their society through easy access to

pornography and other culturally "reprehensible" material. The use of ICTs for interactive education, for

pedagogy that leads to communication and information richness is not yet adequately understood or

developed.

ICTS AS APPROPRIATE

However, even with these words of caution, in Africa and Asia-Pacific, almost every interviewee considered

ICTs as appropriate to their society for various reasons, even in the face of poverty. The reasons were as

follows: for Africa,

ICTs were generally seen as the basic tool for survival in the next century;

ICTs were seen to enhance efficiency in the workplace;

there was a high belief in ICT ability to increase the ease and speed of social communication

and at the same time obviate the problem of transportation;

ICTs help solve socio-economic problems;


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among university academics, ICTs help them reach out to colleagues in other parts of the world

and keep them up to date with developments in their disciplines;

there was the belief that ICTs help to monitor crime in society, and

there was the ultimate belief that ICT usage will make Africa to become part of the global trend.

As one respondent commented:

They help to do things better, they show a measure of development. And if we're going to be

plugged into the world, particularly in the next century, on the continent of Africa and..., we necessarily

must be part and parcel of the information age. And information technology is an imperative that

Africa would miss at its own risk.

In the AsiaPacific countries studied, specific reasons for the use of ICTs included:

online technology enables local doctors to consult with their international colleagues and other

doctors in the scattered island communities;

the most appropriate technologies were seen as the ones that enabled the communities and

organisations to communicate more efficiently (example was given of e-mail);

ICTs promote distance education at all levels;

instantaneous availability of data through ICTs;

the future of education is heavily dependent on ICTs;

Internet access helps productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship to flourish;

ICTs are useful for job search by youths; and

ICTs are essential for the knowledge era.

As respondents said:

we cant deny that the next century would be a knowledge century and the world is developing towards becomingmore and more knowledge-intensive, and IT will be the technology for development of four aspects of mansactivities: industry; manufacturing services; farming, agriculture and fisheries; and health services. (Phil/WP)

Id say its appropriate. Id like to be in touch with the world pretty much instantaneously I think the Internet is themost appropriate new ICT to develop because its information as you require, when you require it. (Fiji/TP)

INHIBITING FACTORS

Against the background of the perceived appropriateness of ICTs to Africa and Asia-Pacific, the crucial

research question was: why are these technologies, given their usefulness, not yet commonplace in all the

countries we studied? Among the African respondents, a wide range of factors inhibit the widespread

introduction and use of the new technologies. These factors include:


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ignorance about the importance of and need for ICTs which makes even those rich enough to

acquire them apathetic to ICTs;

general poverty which leads to the perception of computers, for example, as alien and luxury

acquisitions;

poor maintenance and repair culture in which spare parts and technical experts from the

manufacturers are imported whenever the technologies break down; this leads to waste of

resources, time and money;

poor infrastructural support base; examples include inefficient electricity and telephone

systems;

lack of support from the government leading to underfunding of science and technology

programmes in tertiary institutions;

illiteracy and lack of basic computing skills; these two points are closely related -- in the African

countries studied, tertiary institutions are funded by government and it follows that wheregovernment is apathetic to the need for ICTs, the educational institutions will not be provided

with adequate funds to acquire and teach these technologies;

lack of a science and technology policy; this has consequences at two levels lack of policy

impedes the growth and development of a culture of science and technology, and also, at the

educational level, downplays the significance of science and technology in the perception of

students); and

the absence of democracy which feeds political unrest and the unwillingness of foreign investors

to invest in the area of ICTs.

perception of the technologies (example, computer) as a status symbol or statement of ones

hierarchy in society.

Thus in Africa, ignorance is far more major obstacle and those aware, mostly the educated and literate

people in the private sector, say as much as they appreciate the need and importance of ICTs, the

economic situation in their countries and general poverty make it difficult for people who need these ICTs

to acquire them. In Ghana, for example, the per capita income is US$400 and the average cost of a

computer (plus modem and telephone line, etc) is US$1500. Also in Nigeria, to acquire a

computer/modem, ISP subscription and telephone line would require the total annual income of a

graduate. Compared to the Asia-Pacific countries studied, more people in Africa see the need for theseICTs inspite of traditional ways of doing things but are hampered by poverty.

What are the reasons for their lack of diffusion in the Asia-Pacific? A range of factors were seen as inhibiting

the use of new ICTs.

high cost of the ICTs leading to restriction of access to the new technologies;


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conservative attitudes people are comfortable maintaining the status quo, doing things the way

they are used to;

lack of deregulation and government legislation which gives monopoly to a few information

technology companies;

poverty and harsh economic climate;

infrastructural problems such as inadequate telephone lines and lines cutting off when someone

is logged onto the Internet;

health and social welfare commitments undercutting attention to ICTs;

lack of basic education and computing skills;

political culture which discourages open sharing of information (Philippines)

On the whole, in all the countries and regions we studied, we found that ICT growth and development arebeing driven by the private sector private businesses -- with token support from the government. Many

saw the future of ICTs as positive and believed that their use in health and education could be quite

dramatic. Mind-boggling, with only our imagination as limits was the type of language used by

participants.

Developing African and Asia-Pacific countries are caught in a Catch-22 situation: without using these new

technologies, their future generations will further lag behind and will find themselves further impoverished. If

they use these technologies without addressing some of the concerns and needs of their societies, they could

be placing their carts before their horses. What is needed most is effective and efficient, not to mention wise,

telecommunications and culture policy, as well as research that informs such policy.

The new communication technologies have their strengths and drawbacks, they should not merely be seen

as apolitical tools but as embedded in culture, politics and our mutual futures.

IMPLEMENTATION RECOMMENDATIONS

Moving this research to the implementation phase, we recommend the following:

Implementation must be linked to local problems, specifically to poverty alleviation. This linkage must be

direct, showing stakeholders the benefits of using ICTs for economic growth.

Implementation must also show how ICTs can transform education, making it far more interactive and

empowering for students and professors/teachers. CD-ROMS and access to the web must not only be

inexpensive, but as much as possible be locally driven, based on local content.

Implementation must help transform users of ICTs in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region from consumers

to producers of new knowledge and wealth. Dissemination of hardware must include software support,

institutional linkages, and servicing. This must be done in the context of local cultural practices including

those that inhibit ICT use (hierarchical institutional practices).


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Implementation must occur within a policy context guided by participatory action research, where all

stakeholders in an iterative manner define their needs, goals and concerns.

Documents

The Relationship Between Mind and Technology