Social and Cultural Effects of Technology

In my opinion, the most important social and cultural effect of technology is access. Although identity and community among other things are components of the technological world, to me, it is first and foremost a point of access to information. The internet in particular is all about access. What good would Facebook or MySpace, or any other website be if we did not have access to the information on them? Who would care if you could post content, if no one could have access to it but the person who posted it? Plus, access not only refers to personal web pages and social networks, but so much other information on the internet as well. This includes, music, movies, encyclopedias and just about anything else that a person wants to find on the internet. This technology in particular is a huge network of access points used by participants to find a huge array of information easily that normally would take a person hours or days to find.

Although the chapter in the book talks about identity, I feel that the identity you create for yourself on the internet, first and foremost has to do with what you have access to. For example, the speed of your internet, may limit the capabilities you have to download video, pictures or other things that could shape your identity. It also may limit the amount of time you spend on the internet. In the book, Nie and Erbring conclude that “the more hours people use the internet, the less time they spend with real human beings.” With faster access to the internet, one is more likely to spend more time on it, and have access to more sites that may have video or sound on them, thus giving them more access and possibly changing the online identity of the person.

Although many people think that to much time is spent on the internet, the book also shows how more time on the internet can actually bring people closer together. For example it states that the use of e-mail has connected friends and families that otherwise may have not have kept in touch. The book also talks about the internet in terms of access by explaining that in the past, people had limited access to information on the internet. It was available to only privileged people. With access to almost anyone today, it increases the flow and availability of information greatly.

In the various articles about Facebook, MySpace and social networking, they show how access to the internet is a concrete part of the technology. For example, Mark Zuckerberg gave developers’ access to Facebook to create their own applications. Not only did this access allow the developers to generate income off of Facebook, but allowed the public more access to new applications built to better connect them on their social network.

This brings me to one of the most controversial and disturbing effects that access to technology presents today. Privacy concerns have always been a worry for many Americans. However, access to the internet, and now social networking sites have made the concerns grow. In the article Facebook Grows Up, it says that Facebook is trying to adapt to the concerns of its users and allow them to create privacy settings. This however is still a problem, because sometimes, using these features is to complicated, and those with little computer knowledge can not always use them efficiently.

I don’t think that privacy concerns will ever go away. Especially with new social networking sites where people constantly upload tons of information about themselves, their photos, and many time even personal information. To many people trust the people who are out there on the internet looking at their profiles, and there is almost no way that the internet companies themselves can regulate ALL the information that is posted. It will in the future I believe be the job of every individual on the internet to regulate themselves and what kind of content they put on the internet for their own safety.