Technology: Hero or Villain

Technology: Hero or Villain

Social media is developing more frequently throughout the world. The changes are not directly caused by the presence of social media, but social media offers many opportunities for public relations practitioners to interact with the public through technology and in doing so they integrate it into their daily activities. Social media covers a variety of things including, but not limited to the use of internet to exchange communication. Social media also provides an abundance of programs and applications that simplifies our daily life. Basically we are controlling our lives through the usage of technology.

Technology has significantly developed from the nineties; cell phones and computers are compact and more efficient than they were a few years ago. Social media has become essential for the majority of society worldwide. Digital pessimists never look at the bright side of media and technology in general. Older generations did not grow up having the same advanced technology that we share nowadays; not only did they not grow up possessing advanced technology, but when they were growing up such technology was unimaginable. If the older generation had the same advanced technology that we have, how would they respond to it? I personally believe that they would react the same way that we do. Sherry Turkle, Professor of the social studies and technology at MIT, says, "I don't like the feeling of always being on call. But now, with a daughter studying abroad who expects to reach me when she wants to reach me, I am grateful to be tethered to her through the Net"(37). Turkle admits that technology changed her to become a cyborg, as she describes in her article, while at the same time it helped her to reach her daughter anytime she wants. Another example of how people are persuaded into the usage of modern technology is when smartphones become a huge deal and, almost, everyone owned a smartphone, my father kept refusing the idea of having a smartphone due to the fact that he believed it was just a waste of money as well as a disrupting force in the social aspect of the family. However, when my mother got him an iPhone as a gift, he immediately engaged to all the services that modern technology and new social media provided.

Another reason why elder generations did not get to experience vast amounts of technology is due to the lack of accessibility and portability of devices. Cricket website has an article talking about the history of cellphones stating that, "Celebrities touting the slimmer design included Robin Williams in Hook, Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding and Conspiracy Theory, the "Sex in the City" women, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar in Saved by the Bell (aka, Zack Morris, one of the few teens rich enough to afford the $2,495 price tag.)"( Cricket website) Even though cellphones in the nineties costs approximately double or triple what they cost now, they did not provide the same features that new ones do. Most devices nowadays fit easily inside pockets, which was not the case back in the nineties.

Modern technology has been bringing people certain advantages such as fast communication, the improvement of traveling, and good health care. On the plus side, nowadays, people can get important news from any parts of the world very quickly, pay their bills by using E-mail and Internet. Andrew Lam, Vietnamese American journalist and short story writer, argues that, "The entire world has become news gatherers"(24). In my opinion that is totally correct due to the fact that we get most of the news through the social media faster than newspapers