Out of all the changes that human beings have experienced, perhaps it is technology that has made the most impact. In a span of a few years, society has structured and restructured itself according to the needs and demands of technology, or of the human race as a people driven by technology. And so, this leads you to address the elephant in the room and ask the question: just how is technology changing the society today?
There are an infinite number of ways, actually, but here on this article you’ll just focus on some of the changes that have been most felt in this present time. (Well, you’re even reading this article through some technological development, right?)
- Technology has changed the way people get around.
Sure, travel has always been part and parcel of human existence. While this is indeed true, there have been a lot of significant changes ever since technology began to be improved from one gizmo to the next. One aspect of your life that has been changed by technology is travel and mobility. First of all, when it comes to setting up your trips abroad, you no longer have to deal with pesky and annoying travel agencies that always seem to get your details wrong. Today, you can finally take more charge and do the reservations yourself and it’s all online, too.
Also (and perhaps this is more exciting), more and more companies are getting in the business of inventing and producing self-driving cars. Google’s self-driving cars, for one, can now be seen once in a while running around in California. Whether you’re ready for this or not, is not really the question. The question is: when they’re ready for you, what will you do?
- Health and fitness has suddenly become ‘wearable’.
You’ve probably seen it on some of your friends’ wrists. And before you go judging them, thinking it’s just another fashion trend, think again. Most likely, these friends of yours are getting into an active lifestyle simply by wearing these bands on their wrists. Yes, you got that right. These bands are called fitness trackers, tracking your movements and telling you if you’ve not been doing enough.
These gadgets are part of what is called self-quantified movement, so you can tell how many steps you’ve walked, what’s your heartrate, and many other possible combinations.
- The Internet has become the fuel for a sharing economy that’s getting bigger by the minute.
You have a car? Share it by registering on Uber or Grab or whatever app you can think of. Share it by turning all that information into a blog. Or maybe you have an extra room in your home and you don’t know what to do with it? Post an ad or be a member on AirBnB, and share that room with others.
All over the Internet, you find these ways on how you can share some of the things that you own but would otherwise be oh so willing to enjoy with a total stranger. Truly, the Internet has helped make the world less of a world and more of a global village.
- Smartphones have become tools for you to radically increase your connectedness with others.
Remember those times when you needed to wait weeks and months just to wait for the reply of your family member or your friend? Or maybe you never had to experience any of this, and that’s probably because you were fortunate enough to live in a time when technology was taking full and free reign over the communicative aspect of human life.
Today, you can communicate with friends and relative all over the globe, provided you all have Internet connection. And that’s precisely what Smartphones have made possible, too connection. With varied apps or tools that help to speed up the communicative process, you can be sure that you no longer have an excuse to not know what’s going on with your loved-ones’ lives; they’re literally just a message or a video conference away.
- Human interaction has also changed since social media began.
From things as minor as sharing what you ate this morning down to matters that are as major as calling out and identifying sexual predators through the #MeToo movement, social media has definitely redefined what it means to interact with fellow human beings. Today, to interact means overcoming geographical boundaries and really connecting with people.
So, there you have it: all the many, different ways that technology has come to change the way society works and functions. From revolutionizing the way you establish relationships down to altering the most common human routines such as exercising, technological advancement has truly found a way to become indispensable to human existence.
Of course there will be those who might dare to oppose it, and these people will certainly have their own points of view. However, it still stands to reason that even if you might resist it as an individual, the rest of the world will continue to run on the gifts of technology, and there’s no stopping it.