Introduction
Cultural artifact… What is meant by this word-combination? Cultural artifact is some object or a set of objects which is created by a human being and characterizes the cultural world where people who have created it and used it live. Modern world came into the phase of globalization. Cell phones, faxes, computers and Internet, and other privileges of modern life are technologies without which people cannot imagine their lives.
Main body
Readiness (moving to global environment) The world globalization started many years ago and now appears on one of its stages. There are four stages of world globalization and development: readiness, adoption, diffusion and retrospective. These stages have different goals and after gaining one goal, people automatically shift to the other stage and the society continues to go round. (lan 2005)
The cultural changes, which appear in people’s lives, are closely connected with the development of innovative technologies in the world. People have already used to Internet and cell phones but these technologies came into people’s life not so long ago but have already managed to change people.
There is no universally adopted date when Internet was invented as it was a long process. But the other very important date is known: Tim Berners-Lee “invented a global hypertext program that allowed people to communicate, collaborate, and share information using the Internet in 1989” (Poole and Lamber 2005-15). This invention is used till now and has the name – World Wide Web. Modern people do not think over the very process of delivering information, but the technology of Internet is really complicated.
Internet is used by people almost every day, and people do not understand how it has changed their life. There are lots of advantages and disadvantages of the Internet. The access to the great amount of information is the greatest advantage. Modern society is usually called the informational society. The great attention is paid to information. The person, who possesses the information, possesses the world. People even do not notice the disadvantages of the Internet. How much time do people, especially teenagers, spend in Web? Online games, blogs and other types of entertainment have captures people’s attention.
What else do people loose? The answer is communication. Somebody may contradict that there is an e-mail and cell phones. Yes! E-mail and cell phones exist but the conversation is about a close personal communication. E-mail is one more cultural-technological achievement of the mankind which became available with the Internet appearance. People share their thoughts, communicate, exchange photos, videos through the e-mail. Checking the e-mail is the first thing which person does when comes in office. People have forgotten how to communicate in real world. The communication in Internet is much preferable for them and this fact frightens.
The Internet is used mostly by people aged from 18 to 24 (90%), and 50% of children from 5 to 9 also use e-mails. The busiest e-mailers are senior citizens. 93% of them use e-mail to remain in contact with their relatives, what is the advantage of the e-mail. (Poole and Lamber 2005)
Some snipped review of e-mail history should be given. E-mail dates back to 1970 and the advanced usage of e-mail dates 1971. Ray Tomlinson “hit upon the idea of giving each computer user a two-part mail address separated by an @ sign” (Poole and Lamber 2005-123). The social investigation of the Pet Internet and American Life Project Company “E-mail at Work” gave such results, that 62% of American employees have the access to the Internet and use e-mail. 85% of them regard e-mail as important part of their work, 2/3 of them use e-mail to send reviewed attached files connected with work. (Poole and Lamber 2005)
Work and education became more available for disabled people. Distant education, part-time jobs became the reality with the appearance of the Internet. The technology of distant education gives really good results and makes people happy. Disabled people cannot leave for campuses and the Internet and e-mail gives them this opportunity.
The other type of close communication and time thief is the cell phone. It is impossible to argue that cell phones provide lots of possibilities to people: the communication with people, who are not reached at the moment, the quick cooperation when some accidents happen, the ability to call for help almost from any part of the world. But too much attention is paid to cell phones by people, they are relied on too much. People are always available with the phones and it appears to be the tragedy when the battery is over or if somebody is unavailable at the moment. People often communicate on the mobile phones too much.
People usually cared about wars. War is a great disaster which can influence people’s life style and culture. There is no open war in the world but there is the net war, the war which continues every day in the Internet. The battle is about the right to private life, the right to any private activity which can be ruined by “pirates”, those who exist in the World Web. (Lessig 2004) Nobody is protected. People’s personal information is available in the Internet. Good educated professionals can “break” your computer or e-mil and receive an access to all information which person possesses.
The absence of privacy became the part of people’s culture. This should not be the norm but it is the main description of our society. People are brought in the situation where they are under the control.
It is impossible to say that innovative technologies only harm people, no: both advantages and disadvantages appear with their usage. Internet is not actual law, there is a choice whether to use it or not. And only people’s choice may influence their life. People have the right whether to use Internet with its advantages and privileges or to consider its disadvantages and to live without it.
The examples which were named touched the interests of separate people. The whole society is influenced by innovative technologies and people are not aware of the choice whether to perceive them or not.
Innovative technologies improve the quality of people’s life. New technologies have entered people’s life in different fields. The increasing speed of development of new products, systems and services is based on the new technologies. The improvement of quality of life by means of innovative technology has found its broad usage in the health field. (Bougie 2002) The surgery operations on brain, heart and eyes became possible with the development of computer technologies. The ability to walk was given to people who have lost the dream to make a step one more time. The opportunity to help people to start living again is the greatest achievement of the innovative technologies.
The opposite side of the innovative technology usage is the military field. It is not a secret that Internet, cell phones and other types of distant communication were developed with the military purpose. The development of technologies continues every minute and people may appear in the situation when things which make us happy may kill us. Nuclear weapon, biological and chemical weapon were impossible without the innovative technologies. The question appears, whether all those innovative processes which now simplify people’s life worth the right to live free and peaceful lives under the blue sky.
So, cell phones, Internet and e-mail have changed people’s life greatly. The access to the variable information, the communication with people, who are not seen at the moment, is the greatest advantage. The absence of the personal contacts and communication makes people’s life poor. People do not notice how they limit themselves in communication. The health problems, provoked by constant sitting before the screen, are the other problems appeared with the frequent usage of the Internet.
Internet became the part of people’s life, the part of people’s tradition. The usage of Internet, cell phones and other innovative technologies made people’s life busier, more problematic and faster. People have to keep pace with these technologies and it is rather difficult to fasten people’s life as their life is too fast already.
Conclusion
The social usage of innovative technologies may either give life to person or to kill him/her. People appear in the situation when the cultural and innovative progress is both secure and dangerous. The choice is for the mankind – whether to use this progress with peaceful aims or not.
Works Cited
Bougie, Theo. The impact of new technologies on the quality of life of people with disabilities. Council of Europe, 2002.
Lan, Yi-chen Global information society: operating information systems in a dynamic global business environment. Idea Group Inc (IGI), 2005.
Lessig, Lawrence. Free culture: how big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity. Penguin, 2004.
Poole, Hilary W. Lambert, Laura. Woodford, Chris. Moschovitis, Christos J. P. The Internet: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2005.