Culture Changes As Technology Changes

Technology.

When I say that word, what comes to your mind first? Your smartphone, your television, your computer even? Maybe the way your phone and car connect through Bluetooth. While those are all true examples of technology - they're not the only ones. Technology encompasses all different part of the human experience and culture from food, travel, art, and government. Fire and stone were technology during the stone age because they helped our early ancestors be able to protect & feed themselves differently - thus changing the culture. Machines that harnessed the power of water and steam were technology that changed the culture of the time too. It's the same with today and our immediate thought on what technology is, the more knowledge of culture along with media helps us to understand the world around us and expand our own knowledge and culture. One could say it's as important as an education in Literature.

As technology advances, especially in this day and age, walls are being broken down that allow us to learn more about other cultures and our own. Think about how life changes when socio-economic walls are broken down so that lower-income communities can access the same information as wealthier ones. Technology also has been seen to start changing the way we look at many of our relationships to the people around us; romantic, platonic, networking, and more. As we break down these more local effects of technology on our culture, we can see the more global effects too. We are able to see into other places and peoples that before would require a vacation trip to know. This increase of available knowledge of other cultures and people can lead to higher acceptance and understanding of those different from you.

To focus on the culture of food we can see how the US compares to France. In the United States eating is for the most part seen as a way to get from A to B, one activity to the next. We need to eat quickly so that we can continue what we were doing before or a new task that needs completing. Just look at how many microwave meals & drive thrus are in the country. Some of those TV dinners even directed specifically at kids (looking at you Kid Cuisine: as much as I loved your blue tray as a kid I'll never understand why we had to put PUDDING in the oven!). With France on the other hand, they take eating as a whole social event, taking hours at a restaurant to catch up. There are fast food restaurants and drive thrus, but nowhere as many as in the US. The French want to focus on who they are with while eating, or eating itself, than what they need to do afterwards. Before the invention of the internet, most people would only be able to learn that by traveling there - and that itself was a cultural change on who was able to purchase tickets to be able to fly out to another country.

As we shape technology, so does technology shape us and our cultures.

Resources

1. Epstein, C. (2018). Technology Shapes Cultures. Colby Community Website. Retrieved from Technology Shapes Cultures – ST112 WA2018 

2. Tatarnikova, A., Oleshko, A., Voronovska, L., Shvets, N., Sushkova, O., & Sbitnaia, D. (2022). The Impact of Media Culture on Future Professionals’ Training. Journal of Curriculum and Teaching, 11(1), 117–128.

3. Tolić, M. (2011). Media Culture and Media Education in Modern School. World Journal of Education, 1(2), 89–97.

4. Media sources: technologies | Kid Cuisine | family meal

Technology: Bringing Us Together and Keeping Us Apart?

In the last few years - everything has been online. From shopping, to work, to keeping up with family and friends. Even before this time there was talk about the effects on technology usage and how that connectivity attaches to us. The human experience is wired to the ability to connect, so surely being so online would have negative effects right? Not entirely. Especially since the lockdowns from COVID-19, the online world we navigate has become more nuanced than what it was before and originally thought to be. That nuance comes from the context and how people use the technology, it's how you use the technology just not the fact that a person uses it. Using technology to scroll on social media for an hour has a different effect on a person versus spending that hour to video chat and connect with family and friends.

Since the dawn of time, each new technology or 'thing' has received backlash from the general population for it's unknown effects on people, with high focus on that of children or adolescents. Books were once thought of the same way TikTok is today. However, frequent connectivity helps with psychological well-being and sometimes even physical health. Current and new media being created each day can help people create new relationships and strength the ones that they have. Though it is true that being more online could take you away from those connections in-person.

With the creation of new technology and technology applications, it's good to think of the population as a whole, along with those more vulnerable communities, like the elderly who may find technology hard to navigate at first. This population of people have seen more communities shrinking from reasons of those going into retirement or others passing away: new media like Social Networking Sites could be a way for them to stay connected to those friends and family. But by joining later in life, it can be more isolating and frustrating to understand. Layouts and designs can change while usage and motor skills and make it harder and harder to use applications. It's been linked though that in the older communities that more usage on different technologies lead to a higher connection to cognitive functioning, so there's good research into getting the older generations onto social media, besides the push from family and friends to join.

Whether part of the 'old crowd' or a 'digital native' there are both pros and cons to usage of social media and other technology. But focusing more on the why of technology rather than just using it in general could help research in the future really get a good picture of the full benefits and affects.

Resources

1. Armstrong, K. (2020). Technology in Context: The Surprising Social Upsides of Constant Connectivity. Association for Psychological Science. Retrieved from Technology in Context: The Surprising Social Upsides of Constant Connectivity 

2. Fingerman, K., Birditt, K., & Umberson, D. (2020). Use of Technologies for Social Connectedness and Well-Being and as a Tool for Research Data Collection in Older Adults. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Use of Technologies for Social Connectedness and Well-Being and as a Tool for Research Data Collection in Older Adults 

3. Gloria, K. (2020). The Future of Social Connection, Loneliness, and Technology. Aspen Institute. Retrieved from The Future of Social Connection, Loneliness, and Technology - The Aspen Institute 

4. Hage, E., van Offenbeek, M., & Boonstra, A. (2020). New rules of engagement: How adaptation to online media changes older adults’ social connectedness. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 25(2), 182–197. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1093/jcmc/zmz028

5. Media sources: rainbow group | woman on tablet

Mental Health and Technology - How They Mix (And How They Don't)

There is an "understatement that social media [and technology] has had a significant impact to our culture and our lives" with a 65% jump in usage from 2005 to 2019. But is this impact to our culture good for our mental health?

Now everyone responds to technology differently, and studies have even shown the using VR headsets can help people experience positive emotions by putting them in calming places, but other studies have shown the opposite. Some studies show that while those with depression, anxiety, and even PTSD can go to social media for comfort and support, if they use it for too long or too excessively it can have negative impacts on them. Those impacts can include a higher or more sensitive response to items that trigger them as they have not been able to immerse themselves enough in the outside world from the digital one. With rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide going up right around when smartphones got popular this is not hard to imagine.

Another effect on mental health is the way that social media and other new media technology is our sleep cycle. The artificial and blue light from our screens can throw off our circadian rhythm, thereby affecting our mood. Social media can be addicting to users, causing a "black-hole allure of techno-realms and crippling social isolation." By being online all the time, you could miss out on important social interactions that are in-person, which could bring on feelings of loneliness and that feeling can get you to go deeper into social media - creating a never ending cycle. And while there are groups of people out there without social media who still have high rates of depression, the reasons for their depression are related to how their society run, and nothing to do with technology. For something that stated it would help connect and reconnect people together, there's much evidence that it's doing quite the opposite.

So it might be a good idea to look into your own media usage and determine if it's all good for you, or if removing one or two scrolls a day could potentially uplift your mood for the better.

Resources

1. Binford, J., Dolan, M., Elhai, J. D., & Contractor, A. A. (2022). Examining relationships between posttraumatic stress disorder severity and types of media/technology usage. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1037/tra0001333.supp (Supplemental)

2. Brivio, E., Serino, S., Negro Cousa, E., Zini, A., Riva, G., & De Leo, G. (2020). Virtual reality and 360 degrees panorama technology: a media comparison to study changes in sense of presence, anxiety, and positive emotions. VIRTUAL REALITY. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1007/s10055-020-00453-7 

3. HealthCare. (n.d.). The Link Between Technology and Depression. Health Care 2 U. Retrived from https://healthc2u.com/link-between-technology-and-depression/ 

4. Singh, M. (2022). It’s Easy to Blame Mental Health Issues on Tech. But Is It Fair? Wired. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/depression-social-media-tsimane-mental-health/

5. Media sources: mental health world cloud | teen in phone