It has changed the way we view the world around us and its rapid dissemination of data has concurrently changed the way we interact with the world, as well. Electronic media manifests itself in all areas of our live, making quotidian tasks more facile and work tasks more streamline and efficient. The advent of electronic media has been so profound that most people rely on it regardless of their profession. Its omniscient presence in our society has created a new evolution of mankind in which those that are able to wield these tools masterfully will prosper and those that don’t, will not.
Technology is an all-encompassing tool that allows us to affect the world around us, but not without the price of changing ourselves in the process. The effect of technology and its impact on the world can be seen on a daily basis. It has changed the way we communicate with one another and the language we use to do so. People can now use the internet to text people across a room or across the world. To most people this technology has lost its glitz and glamour and has, in turn, become mundane and part of their daily minutiae. However, this technology has profoundly changed the way we communicate, logistically and linguistically speaking. Logistically, in that as long as there is WiFi connectivity, you can communicate with anybody anywhere, anytime. Technology has made the world more compact. Theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku said that communication systems like Skype or texting have put humanity closer to being a planetary society, in which our planet becomes completely self-sufficient with one planetary society speaking one language working towards the betterment of the world.
Linguistically speaking, technology has changed the way we use our language and in turn that has changed the way we communicate with each other. Since technology is fast paced and information is updated by the second, naturally our language needs to be able to keep up with it. People no longer have long winded conversations over the phone, instead they text each other. Texts need to be compact and provide everything the person needs to know about any given situation in a short period of time. This can be considered a deprecation of our language, but as linguist John McWorther has posed, texting has created a more complex system than what written language has afforded us for the past thousand years. He goes on to say that texting allows us to write as we speak; which is in short concise ideas easily processed by the recipient of our message.
When it comes to facilitating menial or highly skilled tasks, technology has taken the forefront and allowed people from a plethora of fields to come to rely on it for business and leisure. Doctors, electricians, and even bakers use the same devices to undertake their work tasks and bring forth their services to the masses. This fact is mind-blowing when you think about these electronic tools’ versatility. This characteristic cannot be applied to any other tool because most tools cannot cross fields or platforms so seamlessly.
Technology as a tool can entertain us, keep us healthy and make us think more in terms of multi-tasking. In a way, not incorporating electronic technology into our lives makes us more detached and weaker, having less access to vital information and resources. The shadow that technology has cast over our lives cannot be ignored and must be embraced. Technology will no doubt continue to change and with it our lives, but it is the “change” that we have to acquiesce ourselves to, not the gadgets themselves. The metamorphosis of these devices is irrelevant; it is the evolutionary paradigm that we need to synchronize with so that we are receptive and ready to embrace whatever science and technology set forth. As a result, people that are able to welcome and embrace this era of constant technological change will inevitably thrive in a world in constant flux.
Jose Oseguera 