Technology

Technology

Technologyquery_builder February 19, 2015

In tremendous contrast to the life a few years ago it can be seen that our life largely depends upon technology. We get surprised when we see an eight or nine year kid easily using a mobile phone. Nowadays almost all children we see on the street have one and it is just an example of how increasingly technology influences our lives (Deacon, 2000). But is the technology as positive as we believe?

In one way the technology is advantageous because it is an innovative way to effectively utilize our time. In addition to that that technology aids us work with less effort and also helps us to increase the efficiency of any job up to an extent. In fact, we are indebted to technology; we have made progress in areas such as health, industry, information, communication, which makes life much easier. In addition to all the above mentioned things, the most positive factor of the technology is how in such a small time span we have achieved what has not been able to secure from the time earth came into existence (Deacon, 2000).

On second thought we will have to agree with the fact that technology is a complex subject that not everyone could comprehend. There is a big difficulty in adapting to technology by society. For this generation, technology is something that is part and parcel of our lives since childhood, yet for the older generation it is something new to what they should get used to.

In a nut shell we can say that the technology is still in a process of development, but one thing is clear, that technology will continue to be the base of our lives in the future and its impact will have positive and negative effects in the society.

One bad effect of technology on life is that with more technology placing barriers between people, face to face meetings happen less. This small, simple change leads to a whole host of very serious problems with society in general. People are becoming lazier; choosing to stay at home and play video games than go to a basketball game or get together with friends like our previous generation did(Frone et al,1992).

In addition to that, the new issues that are created because of technology gives those who are most affected by them a degrading sense of integrity in their province. In reality, it is this lack of pride that has ignited many of the anti-development feelings that are felt and publicized by people(Deacon, 2000).

All technology is NOT GOOD OR BAD as such but we should be cautious enough so that we don’t become so obsessed with our own creations. Today many people prefer to work at home in front of computers. Work-home conflict, often described in terms of an inter role conflict in which the stress from the job and family areas are mutually exclusive has been connected to several stress oriented, work-oriented and non work-oriented outcomes Anyhow there is, still a lack of deep knowledge about the things that may lie beneath the interaction between job and personal life, and its relationships with employee health and life. Thus an in depth, research on work from home issues has not been supported by a sound and integrated theoretical framework but essentially by role stress theory (Burke and Greenglass, 1999).From this new perspective, researchers have maintained that involvement in one role prohibits involvement in another role and that mental strain essentially increases when people get involved in multiple strenuous activities (Deacon, 2000). Ultimately, a large portion of research connects with the possible reasons and consequences of conflict (also referred to as interference or negative spillover) between work and private life, whereas only few studies consider facts that may increase positive interaction (also termed to as facilitation or positive spillover) between both domains. The workers may also benefit from getting involved in multiple platforms, and these advantages may ultimately triumph over the difficulties. For example, marital quality is an important factor related to job-stress and working mothers compared to working women without children seem to have a life with greater joy and quality environment in their families. In addition to that, involving in multiple activities can also be associated with additional resources like social contacts, money, skills and opportunities that might improve or facilitate operation in each area.

While there are many challenges for home workers, it is time we are seeing the beginning of a “reversal” trend. Here is a list of some challenges our society faces currently:

Kids care – in our “job is the most important” society we often depend strangers for caring our kids in kindergarten, boarding schools, and several other institutions. In these places our children will not obtain the same amount of care and love they deserve and always desire;

Care for the older generation – our jobs often distant us from our old parents in the hour of need. In most of the cases we will not be able to care for our parents, grand parents or close friends, because we live in different provinces or even countries for instance;

Atmosphere – many of us spend long time every day alone in cars or on trams – not explicitly alone, but much isolated – and contribute to the bitter loneliness that always linger in our heart and souls.

Many more examples can be provided. This whole scenario began with the “Industrial Revolution” started some two hundred years ago. Some of us may even remember a period when 3 or 4 generations of a family lived inside a single house. People worked in nearby places, baby sitting or family care always “just” happened .It was a very important factor considering human relations (Deacon, 2000). If we think about today’ single parent families and its effect on the kids, we will be forced to believe that it was a good thing, and that is the single reason why lot of parents prefer working from home as a means to earn living i.e. is to provide a healthy family atmosphere for their beloved ones.
As we can see the entire system of working from home may have a positive social impact in the future permitting us to have a much more natural work-life balance and will heal some of the disastrous effects of the post industrial revolution transformations in the society. A huge percentage of the population will dwell closer to family, local communities will be rejuvenated, in reality it is happening as we speak, and kids will benefit from “more family”, and all these things will have a major impact on our lives and the society at large because as families become good, society will also benefit from it since family forms the basic building block of society and eventually the nation as a whole.

It should be noted if the people working from home does not renew their social skills of building local friendships, or live near family or try to have the free life independent of domination unlike other office workers and indulge only in juggling with words and phrases (as in the case of freelance writers) and only work whole day everyday, the effect can be very disastrous! It can promote only self centered individuals who ultimately give no contribution to the society or country they live in (Frone et al, 1992). The reason why most people like to work at home is that they get quality time to spend with their family. They can be with the family at the same time successfully running the business (Burke and Greenglass, 1999). If it is an office based work it will be difficult do both simultaneously. Another good reason is the flexibility of schedule. They can start working any time they feel like working, there is no boss to give orders and no tasks that needs to be done in an uncomfortable deadline. It can be very helpful for creative workers like graphic designers or journalists since being at home can really help them creatively because they are in their own comfort zone which helps strengthen their creative flow processes immensely (Frone et al, 1992).

In a world wide statistics it was found that people living in developed cities are more addicted to telephonic way of communication. International data on the count of telephones per household also supports this finding; ‘urbanized nations’ usage of telephone is obviously very high.

More empirical proofs project a vivid connection between face-to-face interactions and telecommunications (Frone et al, 1992). The most interesting finding is that most of the phone calls are made to people who are quite close by distance. Again there is solid evidence for rise in business travel (face-to-face meetings) that has occurred despite, and perhaps because of, the recent advancement in communication facilities (Burke and Greenglass, 1999). Improvements in telecommunications also may have helped the substantial rise in economic and social dependency among business group, and this increase in co partnership obviously means more face-to-face conferences compared to video conferences aided by technology! Hence like any other things technology also can be a boon or curse to mankind depending upon the attitude of each individual (Frone et al, 1997).