Developments in technology - Essay Example

? Insert of Developments in technology The use of technology has come a long way I its development to the current state it has reached these days. Technological advancements in the world today has been of prime importance to human beings living in this age. indeed technological developments have eased the mode of communication and interaction between various people today turning the whole world into a single village existing in a virtual world as we can see today hence the term “global village.” Commonly used by various technological experts around the globe. Due to this, people all over the earth’s surface irrespective of where they are located can communicate with each other just as if they are actually exchanging experiences in a close platform. A person located several kilometers away from the other can just reach another very far away from him or her by simply pressing a single button on a communication garget. This has been enabled by the recent developments in wireless communications enabling people can connect to each other through a wireless medium. The wireless communication system has come a long way and has still a long way to go given the numerous discoveries made every day in the communication and information sector. Arguably this system has come a long way from the period of the wired communication channels where the wired telephone systems were used to the recent developments in mobile communication systems. This paper will look at the recent developments in communication systems and its applicability in the passing of information and communication systems between people in separate locations across the globe. Turkle raises a quite a number of ways in which technology has been helpful to people in the present times. A wide range of benefits are discussed in her research which are of course the actual happenings in the world of wireless communication and information. However a number of openings in areas where we have applied technology in carrying out various things in our daily lives as we go about doing our duties and which needs to be addressed. Among of these areas include the education field where technological use has had a profound positive impact in shaping the way people acquire education and knowledge. As we speak, there are a number of students around the world who are doing their studies online. The advent of distance learning has come into the setting as a result of the developments in technology and to facilitate the ease in exchanging information on the internet further expanding the information and communication sector (Clemons and Weber). One can listen to a lecture while doing some other things or carrying out his or her office mandates without any interruption. Besides, just by a single stroke of the keys on the computer keyboards or a single click on any icons on the computer, one is able to attend a lecture taking place several kilometers away from his or her location. Consequently, a lecturer needs not to actually be present in class every day to teach his or her students as this can be done online by connecting the class to an online location where the lecturer in actually located. From this remote location, the lecturer can teach and the students listen, see whatever is being taught as well as take notes and ask questions where necessary ad later on do the exams and submit their papers online. Besides, if you want to consult a source locate I a remote location on some assignments given in class, you don’t necessarily need to go to the library or go shopping for the book in a far off book shop. All that you need is to have an online access to the library and access the book from the library shelves, read it and extract the information required just from your desk hence bringing learning closer to where we are at any moment. To this extent therefore technological developments have greatly made it easier for people all over the world to gain knowledge. Besides all these, technology has also boosted a lot the business world by enabling people to be able to carry out business transactions via the internet. Nowadays, one does not need to walk to the shopping mall to do his or her shopping but rather all these can be done online and the shipping done later at the command of the customer. Glad to note, Chuang and Sirbu notes that various modes of payments have also been invented using electronic money commonly known as electronic money transfer or simply e- money (Chuang and Sirbu). This can be done by using the various companies such as pay pal among others. One only has to convert his or her liquid cash into electronic form and make the purchases using one of these payment modes available on the internet. Using this method then everything is within reach to everyone everywhere on the earth’s surface. Just to add to this, companies specializing in the production of various commodities can now do their promotions online and reach a large number of prospective customers all over the world. Online marketing is a recent and most interesting way in which people use the internet medium enabled by technological advancements to carry marketing and promotion of their products. Companies can advertise their products very easily and cheaply over the internet by using the various social media channels such as Facebook, 2go, YouTube and other sources which actually attract a large number of people and simply post their products on these channels where people using these channels can access them and possibly make purchases using any of the online methods available on the internet. Online businesses also known as e- commerce has therefore greatly helped in the development of the business industry and has changed the way people carry out business. The Toyota Company can advertise their new car model to the rest of the world by simply posting the new model on their online BlogSpot and whoever accesses the site is able to have a full view of the car as well as all its features (Chuang and Sirbu). This is different from the old ways of carrying out the advertisement programs by sticking papers and building huge billboards or carrying placards around or even using overhead loudspeakers to make the advertisements thereby changing the entire game in the business market. Reservations can as well be done today using an online basis. Clemons and Weber actually assert that passengers using an airline traversing a given region can actually make a booking for their travels without necessarily going to the airport or traveling to their agent locations. Reservations can be made online by these passengers securing seats and the airlines to use prior to their travel times (Clemons and Weber). Online bookings for reservations can also be made for the big hotels around the world where rooms can be booked by people traveling from various destinations. On the reservation list, the type of room one is actually looking for can be defined, the length of time he or she is going to stay in the hotel as well as the location of the hotel defined from the data source. This has as well boosted the hotel industry utterly promoting their business by making it open and accessible to the whole world. In a nutshell, technology has changed entirely the way virtually all businesses operate in the whole world making a major upshot to the business industry. Too much on the positive ways in which technology has helped in shaping the way businesses operate, we would also want to look at the way technology has also deteriorated the social setting and initiated a complete change of behavior among people living in current technological societies around the world today. To begin with, the social network sources by bringing several people across the world together also bring along with it several evils and flaws that have negatively affected the social setting and the manner in which people relate and associate with each other. For instance, the use of e- mail system apart from making communication easy among people located far from each other has also made it possible for certain dangerous groups to access each other very easily and exchange every dangerous and sensitive information that are very costly to the society. Just to mention but a few, instances of terrorism have increased in the recent past partly augmented by the ease in using the advanced communication gadgets to plan and execute these attacks. Alongside this is the social decay that is very common among many young people who use and abuse the privileges of communication provided by the internetworking system, such as drugs and substance abuse, unhealthy relationships created with people with unknown backgrounds over the internet through social media channels as Facebook, twitter and such like (Steven et al.) In conclusion, I wish to note here that technological advancements have been very instrumental in shaping the manner in which societies operate today. Arguably technology has eased the manner in which people relate to each other by interconnecting people in several distinct locations all over the surface of his earth in a single network reachable from all angles, what is commonly referred to as a global village. Besides all this, technology has also been very detrimental to the positive development of the society by inflicting immoral behavior among people living within the global village. Works Cited Steven Appelbaum et. "Organizational citizenship behavior." Organizational citizenship behavior: a case study of culture, leadership and trust 42.12 (2004): 13. Chuang, J. C., M. Sirbu. "The Economics of Digital Information Goods." Network delivery of information goods: Optimal pricing of articles and subscription (1998). Clemons, E., B. Weber. "Information Systems Research." Information technology and screen-based securities trading: pricing the stock and pricing the trade 43.12 (1997): 1693- 1708. Reflection on the research I have found research to be a very interesting and motivating kind of experience, save for it being so tiresome and demanding a lot from the person carrying out the research. I did not realize how good and happy one can be after finding out the facts for yourself until I did it myself. Indeed, fact finding experience as per my assessment is actually the best way to learn and helps in applying the classroom knowledge to the practical real life situation on a fact finding mission. The time I spent carrying out my research was so enjoyable and very valuable to me. Visiting the library to look for the information other than reading for the exams I think was the most practical thing I must confess enjoying during my research. Although finding the relevant books and extracting them from the shelves was a rather very difficult event, I managed to get help from my friends and the library assisted me in selecting the books I actually needed. One of the most discouraging parts full of brain torture during the process of carrying out a research is this. Once you get the relevant materials, the whole work is complete. The other thing that I found to be very challenging as well was relating the facts found in the books and other reference materials with the reality on the ground. In order to facilitate this, and validate the theories I read from the books, I had to carry out a fact finding mission to verify the information I extracted from the library as well as from the other sources. This I did through carrying out interviews with various people and organizations such as business firms around the locality to verify if the findings I got from these sources were actually used in real life situations. The first experimental ground I used was my class where almost all my classmates were spending virtually all their free time from classwork chatting with their friends and relatives in remote locations and making friends on Facebook and twitter which I asked about and some of them testified has landed them into serious problems with people they actually did not know well. An interview with the bank confirmed how banks widely use what technology has provided to do business, a phenomenon which I found to be in line with my theoretical findings. In short the whole process was very interesting and successful. Read More