Table of contents:

1. Introduction
2. Technology as a new religion.
a. Is technology a shrine?
b. Responsibility for people
3. Technologies cause frustration.
a. Causes of social isolation
b. Technology and alienation
c. Influence of Internet
4. Conclusion

Technology and modernity

(Expository paper)

1. Introduction
The term technology is used in so many contexts nowadays that it is very hard to give
one complex definition of this phenomenon. Ordinarily, this term implies the collection
of all the contemporary discoveries, inventions and innovations that get a physical
entailment. It is common knowledge that the major priority of any terrestrial
technology is to facilitate the process of working and living of every human being. In
other words any technology is always a tool, a facility used to save time and perfect the
life. Originally, technology was used in order to survive, as it was the primary goal of
the mankind since their first day of existence. Technology was born thousands of years
ago when a man started inventing new primitive instruments to improve the effectiveness
of hunting and fishing. The industrial revolution of the 19th century changed the course
of human development as it introduced industrial technologies to the world and gave
birth to unattended operation. The quality of machinery grew and this fact opened the
possibility of mass production and therefore was an enormous step into life-level
improvement. The second step was the invention of the telegraph as it started the
contemporary period of information technologies. The possibility of sharing the know-
how and other vital information influenced the economy of the countries and therefore
significantly changed the standard of life. The benefits of the technological progress were
obvious but nobody ever thought that this benefit would also have a flip side the side of
isolation.

2. Technology as a new religion

Contemporary people cannot imagine their lives without the participation of modern
technologies. Technological progress has become an indicator of the cultural
development of every given country and person because it resembles the ability to
control. Controlthis is the point technology is all about. Since the ancient times men
needed a tool to control each process in their lives and different technologies became
the fist aid kit for this problem. Technology nowadays has become a new religion. It
really has much in common with any religion in the world. If to exaggerate, the concept
of religion implies that a person has faith in the fact that his God will lead him to a better
future and prayers can help the man to control God giving him exactly what the man
needs. God protects his men . The same thing is about technology. The technological
development provides a good future for a person, too. Technology improves the life of
each person; it does protect for it surrounds a man with a comforting atmosphere of
tranquility for his health, security and in addition to that it keeps the person on top of the
latest events happening on the planet. Altogether it gives a perfect illusion of control over
life and is even stronger than the religious faith.

2.a. Is technology a shrine?

It is hard to get around the fact that many contemporary people worship technology. This
is primarily due to the fact that people simply cannot imagine their lives without its
numerous embodiments: cell-phones, Blackberry communicators, iPod players, laptops,
speed-automobiles, airplanes, automatic kitchen equipment, many others but especially
computers. Computers nowadays have become almost family members and troubles with
a computer are perceived with great emotional involvement. Not many people remember
that the majority of technologies were created in order to accelerate the process of
connection between people. The problem is that the progress of information technologies
outstripped the human ability to communicate. The market is a flood of unbelievable
amounts of information technologies that wipe the personal touch from every single
message transmitted from them. People worship the technologies that save their time and
give them more opportunities to work and earn money. Isnt it wonderful that now a man
does not have to actually meet a person to say, I love you? All he has to do is send an
sms, an internet-card or in the best case send a hand-written post-card or make a call. In
Malaysia it is even allowed to divorce by a text message. Seeing technology as a shrine
prevents people from understanding that all these technological embodiments exist, in the
first place, to complement the real person-to-person communication but not completely
substitute it. Too much of anything is destructive. No difference with the modern
technologies. They entered the life of people replacing men with machines, replacing real
speech with communicators and real love with cyber-relationships. So, the reality is that
the inability of people to control the process of technological influence resulted in various
negative effects such as: social isolation and alienation of people from each other.

2.b. Responsibility for people

Technology has influenced so many spheres of life that it can be even said that it actually
takes responsibility and therefore controls at least four major blocks: culture,
intelligence, personal identity and economy.
Culture is affected through the ethics that accompanies technology in such manifestations
as quality of life owing the modern house static and portable equipment and in the
process of socialization, which implies the increase (or decrease) of the cultural level.
Intelligence is influenced by technology in a way that a lot of decisions are made by
machines: up-to-date programs allow people to rely major tasks to computers to count
everything themselves and simply give the result: a prognosis, an economic calculation
etc. Personal identity is definitely influenced too, as technology provides the opportunity
to choose the way of living, which corresponds to the inner condition of a person, but
equalizes everybody at the same time, for each person is no more that just another user.
Economy is not an exception as it helps to build corporation all over the globe crating
strong economic alliances. Technology gradually leaves no limits for the possibilities of
humanity and humanity gradually become desperately dependent on it. The major issue is
that though technology is responsible for the changes in the society it cannot take this
responsibility. It is the humanity that is to be responsible for what it invents and
contributes into the world. And even more than that each person has to take
responsibility for the technological goods his children use.

3. Technologies cause frustration.

In spite of the comfort modern technologies bring they cannot eliminate such powerful
side effect as frustration. This frustration primarily deals with the domination of the
technology over human values. The social side of the technological progress resulted in
antisocial consequences. A man does not need a friend to come over to help him, or just
to talk because everything that is to be done is done my machines and one can talk with a
friend over the phone, or communicate through sms or Internet. Such social changes with
an antisocial character grow with the growth of number of advanced technologies.
Frustration remains invisible until people actually see that their children do not go out but
spend hours playing computer games, talking on the ICQ or choosing avatars for their
chat nicknames. The lifestyle of the contemporary generation become more isolated and
therefore result many frustrations. One of such frustrations is the inability to
demonstrated advance social communicational skills. Two people feel more comfortable
sharing personal information by means of the computer that in a face-to-face
conversation. Technology is a frustration also because it pollutes the atmosphere, uses too
much natural resources, leaving lifeless earth and makes people useless, as the machines
do everything instead of them. Psychologists are tired of repeating how important the
tactile contact is for each person and that the weakest consequence of such deficit is
aggression. Internet-communication, a computer deciding what is the best color gamut
for the bedroom, virtual-traveling, remote education, computers telling fairy-tales to little
children - this is just a small part of what is going on around us. Depression, isolation,
alienation are looking for new victims that lose their contact with the outside world.

3.a. Causes of social isolation

Technological progress expands our contacts we can have hundreds of people in our
contact-lists, but still we get the same result social isolation. We do not meet these
people; we do not take them by their hands or give a hug when they need it. Technology
brings up a generation of people without proper social skills and therefore immature
people. New technologies have forgotten the values and human goals. Technology is
above a man now, because it is in great demand, brings profit and dominates.
Technologies promote human interactions through technical devices but many people
understand this calling too literally. The term society means that a person belongs to a
bigger formation, a conglomeration of many people with definite peculiarities . This
group of people has common goals and therefore is a unity. When a person loses this
sensation of unity he becomes socially isolated of his own accord. When a person
understands that he does not need to meet anybody, in person, in order, to talk and finds it
comfortable than he is trying to escape the reality. Why do so many people try to escape
reality? The contemporary life has proved that people have so little time to talk to each
other because of their jobs, not even mentioning the tactile contact that their social
frustration leads them to search for a solution. The solution is often found in Internet and
after some time the person becomes absolutely isolated he buys everything he needs in
the internet-shops, communicates with people via Internet and falls in love in the same
manner.

3.b. Technology and alienation

In order to understand alienation through technology better it is important to know the
existing types of alienation which include alienation between the rich and the poor,
between genders, races, interests and so on. Technological alienation implies that a
person does not need to establish social contacts to achieve his goals, because everything
can be done with the help of technological devices. Technology, as it has been mentioned
before, does save time, but this time is nowadays is spend on more technologies like
Internet and therefore causes alienation for many people . People become the slaves of
modern technologies and do a good job in not letting anything else in their life they
even prefer to work over the Internet not to be torn away form their deity. Alienation
means forgetting something that once used to be considered a good manner the ability
of a man to reflect and feel the world and other people in it. The technological
development of the contemporary world leads to the weakening of the social contacts and
connections whose simplification is supported by the new technologies existing in the
frameworks of the society. Nevertheless, the society is trying to solve the problem of
weakening of traditional social relationships through the creation of corresponding new
technologies. Since the growth of personalization leads to the breakup of traditional
social relationships, alienation becomes a compulsory component of the modernity.

3.c. Influence of Internet

According to Robert Kraut, PhD, of Carnegie Mellon Universitys HumanComputer
Interaction Institute greater use of the Internet leads to shrinking social support and
happiness, and increases in depression and loneliness[Sleek, 1998]. Modern
technologies have people the possibility to communicate with each other on great
distances, to find new acquaintances all over the world, to search for information and
obtain it in few minutes and many other opportunities. Each of these opportunities is a
substitution of a face-to-face interaction. The other problem is that Internet is used only to
communicate with distant relatives but also with people leaving next-door and as a source
to find a matching partner. The research made by Robert Kraut proves the existence of
inverse correlation between the time spent in the Internet and the personal sensation of
happiness in real life. People become less involved in different types of social activities
and substitute them with Internet community activities. Internets verdict is that it can
help us to communicate people we would have never met without it, but at the same time
it prevents us from communicating with the people we know, like our family and friends.
This fact makes million people feel lonely and it is important to note that it makes them
actually feel lonelier than they are in the beginning and makes them truly lonely after
some time.
4. Conclusion
Modern technology has converted contemporary life into a constant optimization
machine. The amount of things that get under the process of optimization is enormous.
Human social relations are not an exception. Technology will be dangerous for this
sphere of interaction until people learn how to master and control the influence of the
technological achievements of them. People started treating technology as a religion, as it
is only technology from their opinion that can change our lives for better. The primary
reason for that is because technology makes the mankind see themselves as powerful
beings, which cannot be achieved without it. So, what once was created, as assistance to
humanity, now has become a goal. In other words the goal of new inventions is to make
more new inventions and it has nothing to do with helping the mankind.
If men do not have time to share emotions with their relatives and close people even
having all these devicesthan do they really need them? The malaise of modernity is
something that technology has caused in its very essence. Humanity needs to clearly
define what invention needs to be made, why and what possible consequences it might
have. Otherwise, the depression, loneliness, frustration, alienation of the modern society
will only grow.

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technology has taken over the Christian faith as the most sacred thing in our western
society. Where once we could not live without God, today we cannot live without
gadgets, - Jaques Ellul, ex-professor at the University of Bordeaux.
man is socially isolated in the performance of his work, if he interacts with no one, or
only in an impersonal, detached and antagonistic manner; in other words, if the relation
between fellow workers has a mechanistic character [ Rotenstreich, 1989]

Some psychologists and sociologists are now talking about a new form of alienation
they call technological alienation [Fletcher, 2003].

In Europe today, 33 million people have regular access to the Internet; in North
America, the number is 87 million [Fletcher, 2003].

Most reported instances of Internet use interfering with other aspects of their lives,
including taking up time that they would have used for other activities[Psychological
Reports (Vol. 80, No. 3, p. 879882)].