Category: Effects of Technology

Communication has changed greatly in the past twenty years. There have been very significant technological advances that has enabled communication to advance. For instance, the only way of talking if you were not face to face with a person was by telephone. Not an ordinary smartphone, but a phone connected to the network. Sometimes it was just easy to go over to the person’s house to talk since most people had more than one landline at their homes. Which means that only one person could talk on the phone due to the fact every phone was connected and you couldn’t call three different people on three different landlines. Another thing is, there were no such thing as texting on phones. The technology wasn’t as advanced to where phones can receive and send texts in less than a second. Back then, the mobile cellular phone did not come with cameras or any other apps other than the ability to call another person and talk. That’s one of the problems with regular phones nowadays that I don’t like. People prefer to text since it is quick and easy and it’s not a hassle. But sometimes I miss the days where when you want to talk to someone, you just picked up the phone and called them. It’s just my opinion, but still there is not enough human interaction. And as for the Internet, people are used to Wi-Fi and wireless connectability. The Internet back then consisted of a very heavy desktop computer with dial-up. Thinking about these things makes me glad about the modern conveniences that are available today.

There have been a lot of significant advances in modern technology. This in turn has allowed to communication to advance as well. The first wireless cellphone was created in 1973 and it weighed about two and one-fifth pounds. However, the first commercially available mobile phone was not released until ten years later. This model that was available was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, the first of the DynaTAC series of mobile cellphones. This is the first cellphone that was able to be independent of any cords for a power source or any cords to connect to a mobile carrier to make your call. With this, people could now carry on their conversations while on the road as long as it was less than thirty minutes. That was the only drawback to the 8000x, it had a limited conversation span. And also, if you charged its battery too long, it would get too hot and have minor malfunctions. Nowadays, you can charge any smartphone for any length of time and it will not get hot. Also, you can have a conversation of any length of time without having to wait to continue your conversation after thirty minutes. Smartphones can also send text messages, something that very early mobile phones could not do.

A cellphone or smartphone has become a modern convenience and for some, a necessity. Mainly because it allows people to be able to communicate without being face-to-face with the person. Mobile carriers have made it to where a person can communicate with anyone from around the globe for a price. And many phones have memory/data on it to where it can remember phone numbers along with their name and e-mail address, so dialing a number is virtually easy and can be done within seconds. This makes checking up on relatives easier and allows for convenience for both parties. SMS messages, or texts, make it possible for those quick reminders or a short message to a person when you’re busy. Any text message can be sent in less than a minute, no matter how long it is. However, there is one drawback to cellphones: the lack of human interaction. A text message cannot convey your sincerest thoughts or your anger for something the person did. It is easy to mistake one emotion for another when you are texting. So, a simple text like “I love you” can be without feeling because the person is conveying it without actually saying it to you. Talking to a person via phone call is much easier when it comes down to holding a conversation with someone. You can hear the other person and actually tell what they’re feeling. A text cannot show that. But it depends on which is more convenient for the person at the time.

The Internet holds many things, and it has been evolving ever since its creation. In recent times, it has developed a thing called ‘video calling’. Video calling enables a person to call another person by way of their computer. If the person is available, then the two people will see each other and have a conversation as if the two were there in person with each other. Many people like this kind of communication if they have the tools for it because it enables you to see the person without having to spend money for a trip to see them. And with gas prices nowadays, it seems cheaper to use the Internet for conversation. Yes, it might be in your best interests to go see the person in person, it depends on the reason to do things. I personally prefer to go see a person, but it may depend on financial situations for other people. Video chatting may not be the best option for some, but it might be ideal for others. Some might think that video chatting costs money, but there are plenty of sites that offer it for free, for instance, Skype. Skype allows a person to use their services to video chat with another. It will tell you if your contacts are online or if they are busy at the moment.

Communication has changed greatly in the past twenty years. Recent advancement has enabled communication to advance. For instance, many different options have become available for communication like texting, calling or video chatting. Texting and calling have a fee for their services to be used, while video chatting is free as long as you have Internet. These services are used to communicate over long distances and can help a person keep in touch with family. Each were designed with convenience in mind and for the person’s comfort. These services have some drawbacks but have more positives than those drawbacks. If you are a person that enjoys going to see relatives and prefers old-fashioned conversation, these services are not for you. If you like to keep in touch with a person on a daily basis, but cannot afford daily trips, then one of these services might be your cup of tea. But it all comes back to convenience and what type of interaction you prefer. These types of communication are all with its benefits and disadvantages. And I’m glad technology has advanced communication to the way we use it today.

Communication is seen by definition as people connecting and coming to an understanding of information they are exchanging. In the past, this was done mainly through face-to-face conversations. As the world today has changed so much and continues to evolve, so have our methods of communication.

“Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission, to make the world more open and connected”, – Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook CEO.

These were the words from the founder of one of the biggest social media companies in history, and debatably started this huge movement for communication via the Internet. Email did exist before this, but it never had that connection between people on this big of scale, taking the entire social experience between people and putting it online. Founded in February 2004, Facebook took the world by storm, when it expanded from being used in Harvard University exclusively by its students and being formerly known as ‘The Facebook’ to a worldwide phenomenon. The Facebook we know of today now renamed to just ‘Facebook’ allows people to connect with friends and loved ones wherever they may be across the world.

Pictures and videos can be shared through private messaging or can be uploaded to your Facebook profile page, where your entire personality is laid out for whoever views it. Interests, pictures, posts and who you are already friends with are displayed here, showing us the fact that in this modern society, we don’t actually have to talk to people in person in order to get to know them and their personality, and that this can now be done through looking at a screen and talking over the Internet.

There’s a positive and a negative to everything, and social media sites and apps like Facebook are no exception. Sure, it may be easier now more than ever to chat with friends, share memories with photographs, meet new people and organize events or gatherings. But we lose that real connection, the bond between people that brings us satisfaction for every conversation we have with family or our friends.

“The more social media we have, the more we think we’re connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other”, – JR, French Artist (BrinayQuote.Com).

Yet there’s the counter argument of it giving people more freedom to express themselves, having a voice on certain topics and not having to deal with social peer pressure. What if plans with friends or family change and you can’t meet when they do? How will people know of these changes without sending them a short text letting them know.

Which leads me into offline messaging, such as texting on a smartphone. Staying with the fact that you don’t even need to meet the person you are talking to anymore, face to face is becoming less and less relevant I feel. In certain situations, some people may not meet each other for months on end because of they just texting each other and thinking it’s enough. This can be seen as enough social behavior for months on end, before eventually meeting up face to face, making a huge dent and impact on our communication. Not even taking into account what effect it could have on one’s mental health. However, if the person on the other end of the screen is halfway around the world for example, I think it’s perfectly necessary to communicate with them with the use of technology.

Alternative ways to do so instead of texting silently in front of a screen is video calling or skyping. So many tech companies today are pushing on the idea of this type of tech use. With many frequent advertisements on television and on various websites, this is being seen as the way to go for tech communication, despite the prices of these devices and cameras before rather pricey. A step further than this is undergoing research right now, and is being developed by oculus, the creators of the famous ‘VR Headset’. They’re undergoing development for being compatible with video calling, going for the incredible possibility of us feeling like we are even in the same room as the person we are in conversation with online, which is absolutely incredible.

In conclusion, technology will continue to evolve in the years to come, and so will communication with these changes. Whether they are positive or negative, this is simply the future. We can choose to embrace it or disregard it to a certain degree, but there’s no turning back. Tech style communication can and has created scenarios that we never thought were possible. I feel as long as we thread lightly and know our limits with them, our mental and social health will remain in a good place and our way of communication greatly enhanced.

References

1. https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-do-virtual-reality-video-chat-or-calls
2. https://pumpic.com/security/negative-health-effects-of-cell-phones/
3. https://www.netflix.com/ie/title/70132721
4. https://time.com/facebook-world-plan/
5. https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg/story?id=54361994
6. https://images.app.goo.gl/k4VNF7oiJbGnEhua7
7. https://www.oculus.com/quest/?locale=en_US

In 1972, a game named ‘Pong’ has been developed and ignited attention of people for ball-and-paddle arcade video game. It has sold over 8000 arcade machines in a same year. The success of ‘Pong’ has found a new video game industry. Nowadays, this industry has increased sharply every year. In 2017, Americans spent $36 billion on video games, which was only $17.5 billion in 2010. People play games at any age. For example, according to the IAB, in 2014, 33.5 million of game players aged 8-74 in Great Britain, and the average time spent playing games was 14 hours a day. Video games have become a great way to entertain and communicate with others, but it also come with a huge problem when people get addicted. Just like drug addiction, game addiction can make gamers play for days, disrupt sleep patterns, play at work, avoid communicate with other people. Video games are very easy to be addicted, but the problem is just a few people know why.

First of all, the reason why people cannot resist the attractiveness of video games is because it has several of types, so it can satisfy every human in the world. If you want to kill monsters, survive in a zombie world, or just fighting with friends, you will definitely love action games. This type will force players to do some missions, which gameplay will depend on the subgenre. For instance, platformers focus on jumping and climbing to avoid obstacles and enemies, while shooter and stealth games has a main purpose of kill the enemy in every possible way. Fighting games is a subgenre that center on close-range combat typically against computer or another person. If you love to solve puzzle by talking with other characters or interact with the environment, the adventure game is for you. Normally, this type of game will let gamers choose between multiple choices and depend on that might lead to a different ending. The third type of video game is role-playing games (also known as RPG), in which you can be one or many adventurers who has a set of skills while processing through a storyline. There is a genre in video game that can let you be what you ever desire. That is simulator games. For example, you want to be a constructor or manager, there is construction and management simulation games for you; you want to drive a car or flight a plane, you can play vehicle simulation; etc. This list can literally endless. If you can think of it, programmers can make a simulation game out of it. The next video game type is strategy games. This focus on thinking and planning in order to achieve victory. The last genre is sport games. Like its name, this simulate sports, which the other team can be controlled by another person or artificial intelligent.

The second reason is because of the excitement while playing games. In the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the third level of human needs is belonging and acceptable in a social group whether it is large or small. Video games can provide that need to any person. For instance, when you play a MMO (massive multiplayer online) game, you can make friends in game, participate in a guild, and do some quests alongside them, or if you play a MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game, you must work with 2 or 4 other players to destroy other side towers and get victory. In video games, there are always something for players to do. Gamers can train their character so that they can level up, do some quests, fight harder enemies, or even just sit down and enjoy the soundtrack, which in some games such as: ‘Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind’, or ‘Skyrim’, is made by talented musicians. The last thing why game is excitement when play is the challenge. Normally, a game will have 3 levels of difficult, if players feel it is too easy while play, they can always upper it, some games even have the mode which is so hard that only a few people can finish. For example, the survival mode in ‘Fallout 4’ force players to save only when they put the character to sleep, they cannot travel instance, which is terrible because the map is huge, and they have to face tons of harder feature vs normal mode.

The best thing about video games is that gamers can explore many new things inside a game. When players play adventure games, there always a lot of ending that is waiting to be revealed, some games even have ‘Easter egg’, which is some details that hidden in the game, or have to link with other occasions in real life. If they finish the original game, there is always an update for the game typically will include new locations, new outfit for them to find out. In open-world games, players can literally live in another world. Players can do anything inside the game such as do some side quests, kill unwanted monsters, or just drive motorcycle to everywhere, and with the virtual reality technology has completed every day, the day that people can enjoy a new life while they still survive is closer than ever.

Lastly, video games cost a lot of time if gamers want to enjoy it probably. Everything you do in game need time. If it is an offline game, players have to spend hours to do quests, to solve puzzles, or to make money to buy some useful objects inside games. For instance, in order to have ‘Hylian shield’ in ‘Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind’, players have to go to a specific location, defeat a mini boss, and get the item, but this shield is breakable, so when it broke, they must get 3000 rupees (money in the game), which pretty rare, to buy it from a man that only appear after complete a side quest which also need tons of time. In online game, it even needs more time because games will have to perfect their skills so that they can compete with other players in the game.

In conclusion, video games are attractive in many ways and for a lot of reasons. They have every type that players can enjoy, have the satisfaction when play, have the infinite for them to dig in, and consume time to make gamers get used to. Games sometimes are not free. Players have to buy game, buy DLC (downloadable content) when the game is update, or buy some costumes, weapons. Because of that, gamers really need to control themselves, and play games in an appropriate of time so they will not be addicted.

Video games are one of the most expressive ways to show emotions and creativity. So, why do people think that they are so bad for you? Gaming systems like Nintendo Wii, Xbox Kinect and PlayStation Move promote fitness indoors for all, during a pandemic like Covid-19, boosting hand-eye coordination, analytical skills, persistence and slowing down aging. Online multiplayer games allow you to maintain friendships, meet new people, build teamwork skills, and learn about safely take risks in a virtual world.

There is no doubt that during the 2010’s the fitness at home idea in the video game world was booming, creating some of the bestselling consoles of that era. As an example, many retirement homes have used the Nintendo Wii to encourage fitness. Instead of sitting and watching tv all day, residents played games Like Wii Sports and Just Dance. The social interaction, body movement, laughs and teamwork making the retirement home a happier place. Virtual reality is starting to make an impact on games, allowing you to immerse yourself as the main character in an adventure and having the results in your hands.

The common argument is that games ruin your eyesight, in fact 60% of students in the classroom say so, but research says otherwise. Video games can help you be analytical because of the small details you can notice, like leaf patterns on the ground to finding Easter eggs. Video games can improve your memory, whether you’re trying to remember the story line, enemy characteristics, or character names. As mentioned earlier, video games are one of the best ways to express emotions, but this can also be transferred to the player. For example, when a favorite character dies or during tense moments of a boss fight, video games can be very intense, feeling what the main character is doing.

It is becoming more and more obvious that people like to play online games with their friend, competing with others in the world. This has been demonstrated in recent events such as Esports competing against other teams to become the best in games such as League of Legends, Rocket League, Overwatch, Dota 2 and many others. These games help you make friends by building strong trust with your friends and believing in their skills. Evidence shows that at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, one player of the online game unfortunately died from the coronavirus. Hundreds of passionate players who played with him or didn’t know him at all held a funeral to commemorate his passing in Final Fantasy XIV. One of the best things about playing online is meeting new people, you can meet so many new people just like you. Like it if you’re in a match, you can help new players by giving them the chance to have as much fun as you did when you started.

Therefore, gaming can positively affect you mind, body and social interaction skills.

Enterprise systems

Introduction

The last half a century has come with major advances that have been made in the technological environment. These technology enhancements have transitioned from generic and monolithic information systems to more modernized and unique systems fit to a business organization’s practices. The following academic essay by the researcher opens by gathering an understanding on legacy systems that are a key component of an organization’s business processes. Thereafter, as a result of the evolution of information systems, an analysis on the modernization of legacy systems is addressed as a pre-entry to understanding the newly updated enterprise systems of organizations.

The sole objective of the academic essay however is research regarding enterprise systems and their selection process criteria within an organization’s business functions. Focal areas attached to uncovering this objective is undergone by presenting the mass evolution towards enterprise systems, dating back to the 1960s information system mechanisms, to systems that are currently in operation. Furthermore, the researcher has formulated a hypotheses study based off prior researchers’ studies of comparing adopters and non-adopters of enterprise systems within their organization. An overview of the acquisition processes of an enterprise system is then conducted by analyzing two independent selection criteria namely: the Systematic Help for ERP Acquisition (SHERPA) methodology and the Gartner Magic Quadrant Research Methodology. The researcher lastly provides a probable recommendation of a hybrid system approach containing key stand-alone components existing in the legacy system that will be utilized in parallel with the structures of an entire enterprise system for an organization and their business functions.

Legacy Systems

According to (Bennett, 1995), legacy systems are commonly defined as large software systems that are vital to an organization’s processes but hold difficulty in coping with the ever-changing software systems environment. With the growth in the modernization of legacy systems, most organizations have turned to transform their applications in order to meet new business demands as a result of outdated traditional maintenance practices. Due to their significance in an organization’s business operation since they consolidate a corporation’s data, gathering an adequate modernization technique proves to be essential in making legacy systems more flexible to change (Bennett, 1995). According to an informal industry poll conducted by (Erlikh, 2000), the obtained results presented stated eighty-five to ninety percent of information systems budgets go to the maintenance and operations of legacy systems. This study provides emphasis of the dilemma pertaining to the transition from legacy systems and their very different software constraints toward more modernized and newer systems.

The road to a transformation of legacy systems vary according to the region the system falls in; and additionally addresses components that are worth saving from this transformation process (Erlikh, 2000). With a view toward a low-quality legacy system offering generic industry solutions, would typically have to be replaced with off-the-shelf enterprise resource planning packages. In contrast, high-quality legacy systems providing a competitive advantage within its industry is worth nurturing unless external forces such as business pressures dictate a change process.

Modernization of Legacy Systems

As a result of the significance of the corporate data held in these software systems, the characteristic of modernizing legacy systems in the domain of software maintenance has emerged. Modernization as discussed by (Agilar, Almeida and Canedo, 2016), is defined as the “evolution of systems towards new business requirements of the organizations” that involve new functionalities or technological updates.

The researchers of (Agilar, Almeida and Canedo, 2016), suggested the main reasons leading to why organizations may choose to modernize its legacy systems; they were described to be four main reasons:

1. Error proneness: where a lack of updated documentation and modernization efforts are often made with the consideration of source code as reliable documentation;
2. Lack of knowledge: whereby a necessary understanding of the system design is considered as a requirement for implementing the change process by organizations;
3. Lack of system integration: with software integration allowing automation of business processes presents an opportunity of improved resourced management, the demand for integrating existing systems is growing amongst organizations; and lastly
4. Reduction in maintenance costs: This is considered as one of the major barriers that need to be overcome by organizations.

Enterprise Systems

Enterprise systems and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are terms with synonymous meanings. (IGI Global- Disseminator of Knowledge, 2019), defines these systems as “large complex computing systems which handle large volumes of data and enable organizations to integrate and coordinate their business processes”. Enterprise systems look for business benefits in four areas: (1) cost savings for IT, (2) efficiency in business processes, (3) being a business process platform for process standardization; and (4) a catalyst for business innovation as researched by (Gartner IT Glossary, 2019).

With enterprise systems being designed to replace the traditional patchworks of the legacy systems across a business organization, (Hunton, Lippincott and Reck, 2003) emphasized how it provides a “synchronized suite of enterprise-wide applications”. This pertains to the possible benefits that is included with the ERP system of improvements in productivity and quality in key areas of customer service, knowledge management and product reliability.

Evolution toward Enterprise Systems

By scaling back to the 1960s, the focus for most business software systems was attributed to inventory control. Most of the compiled software packages were designed to handle inventory based on traditional practices. In the 1970s, with substantial knowledge by organizations regarding the inefficiency in maintaining large inventory quantities led to the emergence of material requirements planning (MRP) systems as researched by (Umble, Haft and Umble, 2003). The movement towards MRP systems proved beneficial for organizations as it systematically and efficiently scheduled all relevant business parts which resulted in a forward step for productivity and quality within the organization.

In the 1980s, with organizations taking as much advantage of the increased affordability of available technology such as the Internet, providing them with the ability to couple their inventory controls with overlapping financial activities. The induction of the manufacturing resources planning (MRP II) systems evolved to incorporate financial accounting and management systems along with manufacturing and material management systems (Umble, Haft and Umble, 2003). This provided organizations with more business-integrated systems with material requirements that associate themselves with allowed input of detailed financial activities.

By the 1990s, with continuous improvement in technology allowed for the MRP II system to expand itself to incorporate all resource planning for the complete enterprise. The resource plan areas comprise of aspects such as finance, human resources, operations and logistics and lastly, sales and marketing. With the diversifying of the MRP II system to alternate resource areas presented the induction of the term ERP systems; which can be used not only in manufacturing firms, but in an organization that aims to enhance its competitive advantage by effectively using its assets and information (Umble, Haft and Umble, 2003).

The movement of organizations towards enterprise systems is due to the strong change within the business environment. Today, organizations are facing challenges of increased competition, expanding markets and a rise in customer expectations as addressed by (Umble, Haft, and Umble, 2003), companies have to handle the pressures of lowering total costs, reducing inventories, improving their product’s quality and efficiently coordinating with the global demand, supply and production processes.

Utilizing enterprise systems provides two benefits that do not exist in generic software systems of (1) a unified business enterprise view encompassing all business functions and departments; and (2) an enterprise database where all business transactions are inputted, recorded, processed, and monitored and reported. The abovementioned benefits enable organizations to achieve their objectives of increased communication and responsiveness to stakeholder parties as stated by (Umble, Haft and Umble, 2003). In addition, a unified business view helps in increasing the requirement for interdepartmental coordination and cooperation.

Comparison of firm performance of enterprise systems adopters and non-adopters

With enterprise systems reflecting an innovative business strategy, differentiating between an organization with an enterprise adoption in place, and one without its adoption presents an examination of financial performance as an indicator (Hunton, Lippincott and Reck, 2003). The researchers (Hunton, Lippincott and Reck, 2003), conducted a hypotheses study with the financial performance indicator comparing adopters and non-adopters of enterprise systems formulated around:

1. ERP systems and its innovative component; whereby a reported positive relationship between innovative IT investments and firm performance. The innovative component obtained by implementing an enterprise system must be able to facilitate key business process improvements such as greater accuracy and efficiency in identifying problems and opportunities, a reduced number of organizational levels and lastly, accurate and available organizational intelligence from internal and external sources.
2. The firm’s performances with ERP systems; whereby a comparison of the competitive marketplace presented an expectation of a deterioration in performance for ERP non-adopters as a result of exogenous factors such as the competitive intensity and adoption rate of competitor firms.
3. Financial performance indicators; evaluate a firm’s performance through an analysis of financial statements. The analysis undergone in the hypotheses used four performance measures of: return on assets (ROA) which incorporates both firm profitability and efficiency, return on sales (ROS) as a measure of a firm’s profitability or margin, asset turnover (ATO) as a measure of asset efficiency, and return on investment (ROI) as the last measure included as it has been cited as a key performance measure for ERP implementation (Hunton, Lippincott and Reck, 2003).

The results of the hypotheses study of ERP adopters and non-adopters presented significant evidence on the importance of an ERP implementation and procurement process. The researchers of (Franch and Pastor, 2000), stated that the practice of an “ERP procurement becomes a strategic and mission-critical process for organizations considering the adoption of an ERP”; this statement is aligned to the scope of the organization. An ERP implementation for organizations aims them to enable an overall informational integration of the functional areas across their business processes by replacing most of their proprietary legacy systems and thus limiting future needs for in-house IS developments. This provides emphasis on how a well-established ERP procurement process presents itself as a good foundation for a successful ERP implementation and usage experience for the organization (Franch and Pastor, 2000).

• Overview: Selection Processes for Enterprise System implementation

Systematic Help for ERP Acquisitions (SHERPA)

The SHERPA methodology as defined by (Illa, Franch and Pastor, 2010), presents a systematic selection of phases for ERP acquisitions for small and medium-sized organizations. The methodology covers the entire ERP acquisition process, from the search for ERP candidates to the signatures of contracts with the vendors of the selected enterprise system and its related services. However, the SHERPA methodology has no coverage over the implementation of the selected ERP system within the organization. The process follows a methodology placed into phases used in the evaluation process of an ERP vendor, which goes as follows:

• Phase 0: Study strategy and the business processes and decision for an ERP acquisition

The phase is split into two separate stages. The first stage consists of the project team studying the organization’s mission and strategy, its business functions and processes. The second stage consists of a committee that makes the decision regarding the acquisition of an ERP by the organization.

• Phase 1: First filter and search for ERP candidates

Based off the expertise and knowledge uncovered from Phase 0, the project team conducts a market research initiative by looking for candidate ERP systems that may suit the organization

• Phase 2: Second filter and a thorough analysis of ERP candidates

At this phase, the project team is expected to elaborate further on the ERP candidates from Phase 1. This involves applying an in-depth list of more detailed selection criteria; these would have to be adapted and refined to that of the organization. The project team is expected to select two or three ERP candidate solutions

• Phase 3: Analysis and demonstration of ERP candidates and visits to the vendors

This is the point whereby ERP vendors are expected to demonstrate their products to the project team, the organization’s top and middle management. The purpose of this is to gather a deeper knowledge of the solution specifically its adaptability and functionality to the organization. After this has been conducted, the project team gathers all the opinions; and goes onto refining and review the application of the criteria list to each candidate ERP system and prepares for a selection proposal that requires approval.

• Phase 4: Final decisions, negotiations and planning procedures

The final phase comprises of the project team negotiating contractual agreements with the selected ERP vendor; this includes a cost estimation and an overall implementation plan. This obviously requires the final approval and signatures of IT management and top management and the ERP vendor before they can proceed.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Research Methodology

The Gartner Magic Quadrant as explained by (Gartner, 2019), provides a graphical competitive position of technology providers that may be considering a specific investment opportunity. The methodology features four types of technology providers in markets where the possibility of growth is emerging or already distinguished with the presence of distinct providers namely:

• Leaders who are vendors that execute well against their current vision plan and are likely to influence the market’s broader growth and direction;
• Challengers who are vendors that may dominate a large segment of the market but have a limited understanding of the direction of the market;
• Visionaries who are vendors that have an understanding of the direction of the market or hold a vision for changing the rules of the market but do not have a thorough execution plan yet; and lastly
• Niche players who are vendors successfully focusing on a small market segment. They hold the possibility of falling into one of two categories of either being “Visionaries in waiting” since they have a degree of vision in their market, or they fall as vendors of being “Challengers in waiting” as they are from an adjacent market who are still maturing their solutions in the set market.

To expand further on the Gartner Magic Quadrant, the decision-making tool in relation to an organization’s process is composed around two evaluation criteria definitions of their “Ability to Execute” an investment of enterprise systems on the y-axis of the matrix model and the organization’s “Completeness of Vision” on the x-axis as defined by (Hesterman, Pang and Montgomery, 2010).

Criteria One: Ability to Execute

An organization’s depth of functionality and the technology of enterprise systems are highly rated components of an ERP vendor’s ability to execute an opportunity. Furthermore, it is important that enterprise systems have the ability to serve solutions of subsidiaries at an operating system level running smaller divisions or an organization. An important note mentioned by (Hesterman, Pang and Montgomery, 2010) regarding the implementation of enterprise systems is that automation towards ERP vendors must be a functional fit with additional factors of having a system that has ease of adapting or modifying solutions; having a broad understanding of the user interface component, and must hold an overall simplicity or complexity of the solution at hand.

The abovementioned evaluation criteria are composed of seven mechanisms with a weighted score ranging between low, standard and high degree weights. They are namely:

• Product or Service: these are the core goods offered by vendors that serve in the defined market.
• Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, and Organization): this includes an assessment of an organization’s overall financial health, the financial and practical success of its business unit, and lastly the possibility of the individual business unit continuing to invest in its products and services and their continuous offering within the organization’s portfolio.
• Sales Execution/Pricing: the capability of the vendor in all pre-sales activities and its supporting structures.
• Market Responsiveness and Track Record: this looks at the vendor’s ability to respond, change direction, their flexibility and their competitive success to achieve opportunities, responding to competitors’ acts and the needs of customers.
• Marketing Execution: the creativity and quality of the programs designed to deliver an organization’s message to influence the market, promote the brand and business, and increase awareness of the products and services.
• Customer Experience: the relationships, products and services that enable clients to be successful with the evaluated products.
• Operations: the organization’s ability to meet its commitment and goals.

Criteria Two: Completeness of Vision

For organizations pursuing the use of enterprise systems, there should be an understanding of the market and their ability to recognize the needs and wants of consumers and should be able to translate them into meaningful products and services. In addition to that it is significant for vendors to show the highest degree of vision as suggested by (Hesterman, Pang and Montgomery, 2010) in order for them to understand consumer needs and wants for them to be augmented with the enterprise systems visions. Vendors that simply adapt and respond to current market requirements without acknowledging future requirements, in the long term will evidently not be successful as a result of the complexity of the market they represent.

The abovementioned evaluation criteria like the former is composed of eight mechanisms with a weighted score ranging between low, standard, and high degree weights. They are namely:

• Market Understanding: the ability of the vendor to understand the needs and wants of consumers and translate them into products and services.
• Marketing Strategy: a concise and clear set of messages that are communicated throughout the organization on a consistent basis.
• Sales Strategy: the proposed strategy for selling products, using the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, service and communication measures that extend the depth and scope of the designated market.
• Offering (Product) Strategy: the approach undertaken by the vendor for product development and delivery that places an emphasis on differentiation, functionality and feature sets of mapping current and future requirements.
• Business Model: the model logic of the vendor’s underlying business proposition.
• Industry Strategy: the vendor’s strategy to direct resources and skills and offerings for meeting the specific needs of individual market segments.
• Innovation: the direct and related layout of necessary capital, expertise and resources for investment opportunities.
• Geographic Strategy: the strategy of vendors for direct resources, skills and offerings for them to meet the needs of geographies outside its native environment; be it direct or indirect channels appropriate for that geography and market.

Completeness of Vision

• Ability to Execute
• Hybrid Systems

The major advancements in terms of computing technologies has provided an enormous amount of information available for use in business operations (Xu, 2011). Due to the fact that enterprise systems generally comprise many complex business processes, they can be looked upon as an integrated information system for collecting, analyzing and utilizing information in key business processes. Although the transition to newer and more powerful information systems in business organizations is an evident example of business growth, key personnel of organizations should not deviate from the importance of collating important aspects of former legacy systems. The knowledge that we have obtained regarding the data held by legacy systems promotes the ideal solution of transforming the systems to newer and more productive platforms so that organizations have the ability to exploit faster and cheaper development technologies (Erlikh, 2000). Hence, this presents the notion of hybridization of information systems which is becoming a widely cited trend. This implies a model of keeping key legacy system structures that are able to work concurrently with enterprise systems in an organization’s business processes. Enterprise systems represent a framework of reference of organizing and coordinating activities of organizational actors to manage the distribution of the organization’s information and resources. Obtaining a balance between monolithic legacy systems and enterprise systems shifts the focus to functionality and not infrastructure; this entails that an organization can respond quickly to changing business requirements and technological enhancements (Erlikh, 2000). The conversion of legacy systems to stand-alone components, in turn can transform this source of business knowledge into a competitive edge.

Conclusion

As a result of the ever-changing technology industry, researchers within the field are always presented with new studies concerning information systems. The purpose of this academic essay was to address key mechanisms regarding the selection processes of enterprise systems. These enterprise systems are formulated around a framework of enhancing an organization’s business functions. The researcher presents two selection criteria that can aid the transition towards enterprise systems, which follow different practices of an ERP acquisition. The SHERPA methodology and Gartner Magic Quadrant methodology apply two independent criteria of selecting the most feasible ERP vendor; as mentioned before, the SHERPA methodology has a limitation in its process of not covering the implementation component of these ERP systems. Additionally, the researcher addressed the comparison of the organizations that adopt ERP systems; and those of non-adopters. The result of this study, citing prior research emphasizes the limitation of research available in this hypotheses studies; however an evident result of the findings concerns how ERP non-adopters, will fall back within their industry to ERP adopters due to the transition to these modern systems coupling an organization a competitive edge. Lastly, the aspect of hybrid systems of concurrently utilizing key legacy system components with unique enterprise system applications is presented as a recommendation for organizations that look to pursue the investment opportunity of acquiring an ERP system.

References

• Agilar, E., Almeida, R. and Canedo, E. (2016). A Systematic Mapping Study on Legacy System Modernization. Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering.
• Bennett, K. (1995). Legacy systems: coping with success. IEEE Software, 12(1), pp.19-23.
• Bradford, M. and Florin, J. (2003). Examining the role of innovation diffusion factors on the implementation success of enterprise resource planning systems. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 4(3), pp.205-225.
• Erlikh, L. (2000). Leveraging legacy system dollars for e-business. IT Professional, 2(3), pp.17-23.
• Franch, X. and Pastor, J. (2000). On the Formalisation of ERP Systems Procurement. Research Gate.
• Gartner IT Glossary. (2019). ERP definition – Enterprise Resource Planning – Gartner IT. [online] Available at: https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/enterprise-resource-planning-erp/ [Accessed 31 Jul. 2019].
• Gartner. (2019). Magic Quadrant Research Methodology. [online] Available at: https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/magic-quadrants-research [Accessed 31 Jul. 2019].
• Hesteman, C., Pang, C. and Montgomery, N. (2010). Magic Quadrant for ERP for Product-Centric Midmarket Companies. Gartner.
• Hunton, J., Lippincott, B. and Reck, J. (2003). Enterprise resource planning systems: comparing firm performance of adopters and nonadopters. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 4(3), pp.165-184.
• IGI Global- Disseminator of Knowledge. (2019). What is Enterprise Systems. [online] Available at: https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/enterprise-systems/10003 [Accessed 31 Jul. 2019].
• Illa, X., Franch, X. and Pastor, J. (2010). Formalising ERP Selection Criteria.
• Umble, E., Haft, R. and Umble, M. (2003). Enterprise resource planning: Implementation procedures and critical success factors. European Journal of Operational Research, 146(2), pp.241-257.
• Xu, L. (2011). Enterprise Systems: State-of-the-Art and Future Trends. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 7(4), pp.630-640.

The Internet has been one of the most life-changing and important inventions of the last century. Kids spend more time sitting at home playing video games or watching TV. Most parents don’t like seeing their kids being on their phone or on the Internet all the time. Although the Internet may be one of the greatest inventions of the last century, it has made some negative impacts on our society and children.

Teenagers are one of the most common groups of our society that can get artificial by the Internet. First, the Internet has made a lot of kids nowadays to be less social because they prefer to socialize virtually than interacting face to face. As the author of the article says, “Teenagers nowadays are both more connected to the world larger than ever, and more cut off from social encounters that have historically prepared young people for the move into adulthood”. The relevance of this is that it shows how teenagers prefer to interact by the Internet than face to face interaction which is very important for us to move into our adulthood. As a result, these teens are becoming more and more distracted by the Internet than what could be happening in front of them. In the article ‘What Adolescents Miss When We Let Them Grow in Cyberspace’ researchers have found that “the time spent in direct contact with family members drops by as much as half for every hour we use the net at home”. In fact, teenagers are becoming less reliant on their brains than they normally should be. They are so wrapped up on the internet that they begin to lack basic knowledge, sense of reality, and waste the majority of their time on the Internet.

Using smartphone or being on the cell phone can cause serious problems for our brains and for our mental health. The writer of an article called ‘Smart Phones Aren’t the Choice’, says: “Increasing rates of depression in adolescents, especially in girls, correlated with the use of mobile phones and Internet”. In the passage, the author emphasizes that using cell phones can be very dangerous and can cause mental health like depression, anxiety and all kinds of illnesses. In the same way, author Delaney Ruston, says: “Kids I have met in through Screenagers tell me how they retreat into their phones to avoid feeling anxious while socializing”. This is important because if the government ban cell phones for youngsters, it could help their social skills grow better. At the end, by being too much on the phone, serious health problems can be created.

Teenagers who are new on the Internet often see it as a place where they have tons of things to try and explore. This leads to addiction and them going on the wrong sides and different sides of the Internet which involves a lot of chatting websites and deep content that can have a bad effect on their minds. For instance, teenagers are seen getting into relationships with people they hardly know on the Internet and this can begin the trauma and sadness for them which these young people should not go through at this age, not to forget the effect it has on their school life and social lives. Although some people argue that the Internet has a lot of benefits on teenagers lives such as it helps them learn, explore and find their way and answers, and I agree with the benefits too, but I think the negativity of the Internet has outweighed the benefits.

The overall message and argument of this essay is that teenagers should not spend too much time on the Internet and use that time to actually explore the world on their feet and spend more time face to face interaction and learning.

Society nowadays is completely dependent on technology due to the fact that it has taken over the world and is leading us to many possible futures. Technology and society cannot be separated, it has impacted the needs and demands of many people. As an individual, it has allowed us to communicate more often, learn effectively and think. Technology has been used to perform different tasks in an individual’s life whatever the cause is, traveling, communication, learning, business, and comfortability. But before getting into the topic of how technology has helped us, individuals, the most important is its history of it and how it has impacted society the way it is now. We are living at a time where technology is advancing even more but the most important is how it all started. Overall the relationship between technology and society is correspondent. The society operates through technological change, while the changes in technology shape L le society. Technology definitely plays a role in our society as it allows us to do anything in our world today.

Technological determinism is a reductive theory that directs focus between technology and society’s nature. The term revolves around how technology in any given society can define its nature in many ways. Technology is viewed as a ‘driving force’ as it shapes changes in technology and culture in society as well as history. It starts with the introduction of technologies that introduces various changes that helped various cultures around the world knowledge. For example, agricultural tools and methods that were used for the traditional means of farming. Mechanized agriculture has a huge connection to technology, various technologies of agriculture have helped people to grow large amounts of food by these mechanics. The increased use of technology in field agriculture resulted in the manufacturing of crops at a high pace. Technological systems of agriculture are very important to agriculture because it allows it to control the land, some examples are the plow and fence, allowing the cultivation of plants, hoe, crop rotation, and irrigation technology. Harvesting and processing such as sickles and scythes, reapers, mills, and presses. Lastly, transportation such as carts and railroads has been around for a very long time.

Despite how technology has helped to farm, the invention of the gun has changed the face of combat. The invention of the gun required a lot of effort and skill to make a weapon that can be successfully used out in the distance. When this is compared to historical times, you’re talking about swords and archery which leads to a radical change in how these weapons were used in war. An example of a weapon we discussed was the Matchlock gun which was invented in the 1400s. It was the first mechanical firing device, an S-shaped arm called the serpentine that held a match, and a trigger device that would lower the serpentine so the lighted match could fire priming powder. It was all muskets and archery, this is how weapons increasingly developed throughout the century. Imagine if society today didn’t rely on weaponry, what would we do? First of all, the advancement of weapons is important in our time because it allows the efficiency of law enforcement, self-defense, and warfare. Throughout the centuries, warfare was increased due to weaponry, the muskets with metal balls to bullets being able to penetrate through enemy lines. Today in our time, guns are primarily used to hunt animals and law enforcement. It’s very important that law enforcement carries a firearm because it provides them with self-defense and protection. The invention of a gun has always been thought out due to knowledge, if you can see weaponry had a huge effect throughout centuries due to the fact they are upgradable and define how technology became a big impact on machinery.

Technology made a big impact on weaponry and farming but now let’s talk about how it made an impact on our society today. One of the biggest impacts is the improvement of communication and education. Communication has always been a key fact to our society today, it all started with cave paintings or hieroglyphics to be able to understand what someone was writing. Bouncing all the way from the sixteen hundreds to the eighteen, communication in the centuries started on paper and was delivered by hand from place to place, now we have phones, computers, etc. Everyone around the world uses communication for a lot of purposes, society today is very dependent on communication for the purpose of making it better. Communication is always convenient for people but there are always some negative sides to it. It can hurt our communication skills causing extended screen time and various health effects. One of the main issues of technology in communication is it can get very addictive but that’s how people improve their ways of communicating with other people. No change to this should be made, if you take a look at our society today we’ve established ourselves to technology well as if it was the only thing we have in the world.

My thought is I do believe technology helps us with our needs, a lot of people depend on technology if not to make it even better by improving it even more. Connecting with historical times, it brought a major role of farming in agriculture. The improvement of technology for farming has allowed people to grow crops efficiently at a faster pace. Weapons such as the matchlock were a huge success allowing much more firepower and a huge success for warfare. It’s important that we look at how it all started so we can get an idea of where it came from and how it improved throughout centuries. We focus now on communication and how it plays a role in technology and society. The more technology we use the better our communication will get, despite the negative effects it can bring communication at a high level. Nowadays the most important is education and how it will use technology to take it to the future. Technology is the future and we wait for what it holds for us.

The concept of modernity has been subject to investigation by many scholars and largely concerns components of industrialization, urbanization, education, secularization, and the creation of mass media. Socio-technological developments such as the modern city, railway travel, and mass media promoted criticism of tradition, and, when combined with changes in lifestyle due to ongoing war and the introduction of urban consumerism, modernity can be further embodied by the antinomy of change and continuity. The such reinvention of society inevitably resulted in the scientific analysis of human existence and revaluation of the individual, invoked by an atmosphere of uncertainty and rapid change. This essay seeks to explore the Eurocentric concept of modernity and its attribution to contemporary intellectual and technological developments to confer how a sense of ‘modernity’ was constructed in a rapidly changing socio-technological climate. I shall begin by analyzing the technological impact of industrialization and urbanization, progressing to the examination of the impact of progressions in scientific thought, and concluding with the consideration of the ‘aesthetic’ revolutions of modernity.

Historiography of modernity is rather complex due to the versatility of the theory. Conditions of modernity can regionally vary distinctly, as explained by Eisenstadt, and so this investigation will focus on the development of modernism in Europe. The contributions of prominent individuals such as Darwin, Freud, and Marx create a general agreement that the revolution indicted by innovation can be characterized by the loss of tradition and religion wherein many began to question the state of human existence and purpose, leading to an influx of new ideas concerning anatomy, psychology and the brain in particular. These schools of thought must be considered within the contextual atmosphere of WWI and the turn of the century, a period that Bullock describes as the ‘double’ image of change and stability. The beginning of the twentieth century signified a new era for civilization in the watershed of industrialization, imperialism, and urbanization, effectively reinventing society.

Arguably the catalysts of modernity and central to understanding its conditions are the technological advancements introduced through industry, war, and the creation of cities. Urbanization was the advent of industrialization, a process that transformed the social constructs of work and family whilst introducing a prominent new urban working class. It was therefore the watershed of a multitude of new technologies that hastened the transition of societal infrastructure to become more akin to modern-day, particularly with the introduction of the steam engine into the textiles industry, which skyrocketed production and inspired the creation of factories. Preceded by the enclosure movement and agricultural developments, people began moving to urban centers for work, establishing the first modern cities. These became modern centers of pioneering technology, and processes of industrialization created communities that became hubs of innovation and communication, the heart of modernity. Bradbury labeled the tumultuous environments of the modern industrial city as appropriating “the functions and communications of society, most of the population, and the furthest extremities of its technological, commercial, industrial and intellectual experience”. Durkheim developed this, exploring the contrast between the individual and society, asserting that human nature itself is ‘inherently egoistic’, whereas the moral consciousness of society’s values is contradictory, so the collective attitudes of people must be attributed to social integration rather than intrinsic personal belief, a process enabled by mass migration. The city itself epitomized the culture of modernity in its incarnation of Bullock’s concept of change and continuity. The Industrial Revolution created an entirely new way of living through what Mason labels ‘the mechanization of production’, laying the foundation for modern capitalist society. This intellectual analysis of the technological revolution placed cities at the loci of modern European civilization. The steady industrialization of society into a consumer-based capitalist institution is a hallmark of modernity, clearly centering the creation of urban industry in modernist reformation. However, the epitome of the age of technology can be seen in the introduction of railways, radically reorganizing concepts of space and time by shortening travel times: introducing new travel routes, and bringing previously isolated communities into contact with cities. Railways remapped the country and the relationship between rural and urban populations, forever changing consciousness by standardizing nationwide times through the imposition of train schedules. This new development of time was cultivated alongside market capitalism, placing a different kind of value on how time was measured by replacing ‘agrarian’ time with ‘clock’ time, a technological feat intrinsic to modern living.

Evolutions in scientific thought paved the way for modernity when combined with technological advancements. Technological innovations compressed space and time, embodying metaphors for the subjective experience of modernity: the transformation of routine and the nature of social interactions. City consumerism contributed to the development of mass media; quicker communications across the country created a new sense of urbanization that reflects the notion of modernity. The implementation of the press enacted changes in the emerging concept of individualism, massively impacting the dissemination of information and expression of public opinion. A key theme of modernity is the breaking of tradition, and the media acted as a central component, shaping popular cognition by intertwining communication with consumerism. Cities were obviously central in this reorientation of time and thought, most notably perhaps in the construction of the Eiffel Tower as the beacon of the new radio age, and newspapers such as the Spectator sought to encourage intelligent discussion in everyday social settings to align with the evolving values of society. The ability to disseminate and discuss information through media forms the basis of Anderson’s ‘print capitalism’ theory, that the convergence of capitalism and print technology enabled the standardization of language, time, calendars, and nationalized political awareness or ‘imagined community’. Print capitalism was embodied in the publication of daily newspapers and other news outlets, allowing the development of intellectual participation and discussion in political, scientific, and social ‘imagined communities’ within a nation limited to capitalist societies. McLuhan built upon this idea, suggesting print capitalisms had a profound impact on cognition and social order: communication technologies changed habits and interactions to promote individual interpretation, rationality, and, as Baron asserts, “allowing for an extension of the senses” when combined with medical technological advancements. In achieving this logical transformation of thought and discussion in light of nationwide standardizations, “the linear and logical emphasis of writing was mirrored in the regimentation of clock time”, and reinventions of communication and work to conform to modern standards were critical in doing so, redefining daily routines and infrastructure. The coupling of the Industrial Revolution with technological advancement was conducive to creating the foundations of twentieth-century modernity.

The revaluation of the concept of time was influential in modern scientific developments of analysis of the physical world, namely Einstein’s theories of relativity. Relativity constituted a challenge to ecclesiastical philosophies of absolute laws and views of the universe: Einstein considered the question of the relationship between space and time, suggesting that ‘time’ depended on the position of the individual observer, giving rise to the concept of ‘space-time’, wherein time is the fourth dimension of space, creating a distinct condition of modernity in the understanding of human existence. As these ecumenical understandings came under the scrutinous eye of scientific evaluation, Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species’ and later work ‘The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex’, debunking the myths of humanity and focusing discussion on the human body and life sciences. In an epitome of modernist scholarly pursuits, Darwin’s theories symbolize the transmogrification of perception of the biological world into an entirely modern mindset, often compared to Copernicus and Newton’s radical models of the physical world and its laws. Darwin introduced the evolutionary theory of natural selection in the survival of the fittest, rationalizing Earth’s biodiversity and embodying modernity through its revolutionary basis in observation, not tradition. Darwin’s focus on the struggle principle of human existence had a profound impact in both popular and scholarly fields, particularly the development of Freud’s pleasure principle of human existence.

Life sciences are inseparable from emerging developments in subconscious thought theory, resulting in Freud’s ‘turn inwards towards the subconscious and the mind’. Darwin’s exploration of natural selection prompted Freud to hone into sexual selection and the study of the brain, leading to his most prominent concept, psychoanalysis. Freud encapsulates Bullock’s double image of change and stability by allying the rational scientific and technological developments of modernity with the difficult emotional reaction to change. He developed the idea of the unconscious mind and concluded that childhood experiences and traumas implicated emotional issues as adults, therefore, that man is governed less by reason but more by emotion and irrationality, challenging traditionalist understandings of human anatomy and purpose.

Freud’s tripartite of the psyche is composed of the instinctual ‘Id’, related to sexual and aggressive drive; the ‘Ego’, attributed to conscious personality and rational decision-making in situational context; and the moral ‘Superego’ which seeks to control reaction through the dual systems of conscience and the ideal self, morality. According to his theories of personality and psychoanalysis, the Id operates on the ‘pleasure principle’, linked to Darwin’s theories of sexual selection, the idea that impulses should be immediately satisfied to avoid tension, and therefore the Id is associated with primacy, fantasy, and irrationality. In contrast, the Ego seeks pleasure through the ‘reality principle’, that fulfilling desire must have a realistic strategy behind achievement, and if that fails, unconscious defense mechanisms are used: problem-solving or ‘reality testing’. Freud compares the Ego to a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse, the horse being the Id. The Superego, however, functions as the moral compass of the brain, seeking to control the impulses of the Id, especially in terms of sex and aggression, and the moral aspect of the Ego’s decisions, perhaps through emotions such as pride and guilt depending on the decision made. This psychoanalytic model of the brain comprises the foundation of Freud’s personality theories and the revolutionary birth of psychological schools of thought. Freud, therefore, utilized technological medical developments to enact the complete reconception of mental illness in popular belief, placing a rational explanation on irrational, anti-social behaviors. Psychoanalysis defied religious preconceptions of the brain, introducing new medical treatments such as talk therapy that reemphasized the communicative component of modern society. Later work of his addresses the fundamental paradox of modernity: society was created to fuel the innate desires of the Id, yet is the largest source of contempt through the imposition of cultural ideals, and repression of instinct needed to function in the constrictive ideology of civilization. Combined, Darwin and Freud’s work is the crux of scientific modernity due to the secularization of anatomy and education.

However, Darwin and Freud’s biological theories of human existence must be analyzed in tandem with Marx’s sociological theories of modern civilization in order to understand the foundations of sociological modernity. With the dawn of the age of technology came steady secularization, the breaking of tradition, and the initiation of democracy and introspection. Antoine Destutt de Tracy, the man who coined the term ‘ideology’ argued: “The science of ideas would demystify society just as natural science had demystified nature”. Karl Marx, the true founder of modern sociology, ‘in so far as anyone can claim the title’, claimed to have discovered the natural laws of human society: the history of class struggles. He believed that the economic structure of the class was reflected in social consciousness and that socio-political relationships between people are thus dependent on material production. His vision of modern society would find its apex in the proletariat revolution against capitalism, and the establishment of socio-economic emancipation, derived from the instability in new capitalist states. Similar to Marx, Weber highlighted the economic dependence of society, hypothesizing that status, class, and therefore power defines society’s split into a hierarchal bureaucracy designed to ensure industrial success – the centralization of economic infrastructure in modern cities. Evidently, the sciences of society, man, and mind, the central struggle of existence vs the pursuit of pleasure, are irrevocably intertwined in the conditions of modernity: they serve as key scientific revelations that reshaped popular understanding of ourselves and the physical world around, shaping Europe into societies recognizable today.

These intellectual and industrial developments also had a profound impact on modern culture, especially in the ‘aesthetic sphere’ of art, arguably the principal actor in the popular promotion of modernism. WWI and the creation of modern cities instigated the beginning of modernist movements that echoed the ‘double image’ of war and change, innovation, and continuity: Bullock viewed Cubism as the ‘first truly twentieth-century painting’ in its break from tradition through disregard for anatomy. However, the two major aspects of modernity that influenced modern art were time and psychoanalysis. Dali­ and many other Surrealists were fascinated by psychology and the unconscious mind, particularly the significance of the dream state and its supposed creative links. Consequently, Surrealists followed the ideas of Sigmund Freud, demonstrating his drastic impact on modernism. Following Freud’s theories, Surrealists interpreted dreams to have ambiguous meanings and created paintings that explored these intricacies through color, form, and subject matter, capturing modernity’s fundamental characteristics through painting. Artistic innovations helped display the compression of space and time of technological development, acting as metaphorical devices to express the subjectivity of the individual ‘modern experience’. Despite the contempt for urbanization from some, many artists and intellectuals flocked to cities to experience modernity, further centralizing the city’s position as the heart of the modernist revolution. This explains, as Rechniewski proposes, “the inter-relationship of the great modern cities with the artists as the intermediaries in the translation of the experience of modernity”. The impact of a capitalist lifestyle was portrayed in a new muse of domestic life, capturing the epic in the everyday. It was also the advent of an enhanced female role in art and intellectual spheres, understood as the New Women ideology – seen in Oppenheim’s abstract interpretations of modern domestic living. At the risk of overlapping with the post-modernist movement, the civil rights and women’s movements inspired by post-war sentiments challenged the perception and status quo of minority groups, indicating a more localized agenda to modernism and reflecting the continually evolving concept of modernity and its foundation in protest and revolution, the duality of the individual and the collective.

Modernity’s cultural program of collective identity and individualism can be epitomized in iconic artwork of the era, most notably Munch’s ‘Scream’, both a metaphor for his personal turmoil and society’s uncertain state. The use of color contrast, distortion, and expression depicts the most prominent symptom of modernity: anxiety. Change and stability and juxtaposition of the inner conflict of individualism in a collective consumer culture are represented in the subject’s emotional distress and the mysticism of the painting, reflecting the loss of certainty that correlates to secularization. For this very reason, art was often seen as the physical manifestation of the collective experience in modernity’s reality, as well as the birth of a visual and literary culture of mysticism in the ‘maelstrom of modernism’, centralized art as a medium for the establishment of modernity into popular opinion.

To conclude, the introduction of railway travel, media, and the consequent restructuring of civilization and the lived human experiences of time and lifestyle acted as seminal points for modernity, introducing Darwin, Freud, and Marx’s entirely new socio-cultural constructions that create the foundations for modernity. These theories engendered a new social revolution, signified by what Bullock describes as the ‘artificial demarcation line’ of the turn of the century in the movements of modernism, embodying the double image of conflict between modern society and the individual, addressing the beliefs of Eisenstadt, Freud, Bullock, Marx, and Baron. Although analysis may have risked oversimplification of fields of study and concepts, it was necessary to analyze the such versatile change in one essay.

Technology was, is, and will be mediated by society. In order to understand it, we need to understand the roles played by technology in human existence and society. When technology is used, it helps to shape the relations between human beings and the world. People have always panicked about the implications of new technologies. They always worried about the nature of technological change today, and also about its pace. We went from having no World Wide Web to a full-blown World Wide Web in 20 or 25 years, which seems astonishing if we consider how much the Internet has changed human life. Take telephones for example, it took many decades to fully spread and become as ubiquitous as it is today. Technological information increases exponentially, and this explosion (technological explosion) is the implication of another explosion called the ‘information explosion’. Improvements in technology lead to increases in knowledge and information, which further helps it to be a better technology. Technology is steadily changing the social good landscape, which in turn influences technology on an ongoing basis. The history of social movements developed in parallel to technological changes in societies.

The interaction between technology and social movements can be seen at different levels, namely, the instrumental level, the symbolic level, and the material level. At the instrumental level, technology has an impact on mobilizing structures, organizational patterns, and protest activities of social movements. At the symbolic level, social movements have an impact on technologies and their role in society, which often includes new technological advancement. Finally, at the material level, social movements have an impact on the actual usage of technology (technological devices), in which activist technical knowledge and competencies lead to the alternative and creative use of technology.

For instance, consider the technology CCTV, also known as closed-circuit television, which today is mainly used for viewing traffic violations or in gas stations, convenience stores, and homes as a security system. This technology helps a lot in the case of protest movements, such as the protest in London in 2009 against the Israeli offensive in Gaza. There CCTV was the primary source of evidence used in court cases against the protesters. The videos recorded by the CCTV helps the court to arrest 100 people, among which 65 people were responsible for their violent actions and at least 29 were sentenced to jail for a few months because of associated criminal activities. Similarly, the conflicts in the Middle East in 2011 are another good example where Internet-based technology is effectively used. This technology is a web application that collects messages, tweets, and photos from protesters and tries to make sense of what is going on, which can help people to stay away from trouble by informing them in advance where to go in such cases.

But it is not always that society gets benefited from technology. Consider the above two examples, if the conflicts didn’t happen in the Middle East, then the specific Internet-based technology mentioned above would not be developed. The technology did progress when there is a need. Now, in the case of CCTV technology which had developed far more before the London Protests, there is a need for further development in the video surveillance camera system. This is because here the quality of recorded video plays an essential role in arresting protesters who are involved in violent activities. It may happen that some evidence got escaped or maybe some innocent got caught by the controlling authority like police, because usually the protests movement do involve a large group of people, and when things go wrong, there is often rush or congestion between the people and the police, and because of which it might happen that the face image was not clear or someone got out of view field of recording camera and due to this wrong decisions can be made, and thus there is a need to make everything state-of-art in the CCTV technology, especially the quality of recorded footage and range of camera recording.

Now consider the famous environmental movement of India, ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ (NBA). NBA is a social movement consisting of adivasis, farmers, environmentalists, and human rights activists against the number of large dams being built across the Narmada River. The main aim of the project is to provide irrigation and electricity to people living in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. In another way, one can say that is a movement against the dam technology, which is a sub-component of electricity-producing technology, as water collected by these dams is used to produce electricity. In previous examples of social protests, technology is implicit gets developed because the agenda or main aim of those protest movements is not related to any particular technology, but instead some other matters, and they make use of technology in order to achieve what they aimed. In this case, the main agenda of the NBA movement is to get rid of the dam technology for many reasons, for example, the poor sections of society get affected by it most and it will cause harm to the environment through deforestation, destroying flora and fauna near the river, etc. Surely, other technology helped the protesters to make their agenda successful, but the development of electricity-producing technology gets halted because of protests against the dam. Thus, it depends upon which technology we are talking about which gets mediated by society.

Another example can be given of the anti-nuclear movement in Russia against nuclear technologies like nuclear weapons, and nuclear power plants, the sole purpose of which is to generate electricity. This social movement formed after the famous terrifying man-made Chornobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. In general, antinuclear organizations tend to emphasize alternative energy sources, the dangers of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, possible environmental hazards, and the safety of nuclear-industry workers. These bring forward big challenges, which will require the creation of new technology or advanced existing technology. For example, after the Chornobyl incident, a major challenge is to confine the remains of the destroyed nuclear reactor unit with some shelter structure. This structure should prevent the release of radioactive contaminants from exiting the reactor, which is causing many problems like water intrusion, and exposure of radio-elements in the air, which can cause many deaths and make the environment unstable for living. In the year 2017, the structure, called ‘New Safe Confinement’, is placed covering the existing damaged temporary structure built a long time back that contains the damaged nuclear reactor. It was designed with the primary goal of confining the radioactive remains of the reactor for the next 100 years. Hence, in this case, because of the anti-nuclear social movement, there is advancement in nuclear containment technology.

Thus, the analysis of the given examples gives the right to assert with full confidence that technology is mediated by society.

Technology and technological devices are constantly changing and evolving. This wavering progress causes constant changes in our everyday lives. Things that were once mere fantasies of the coming have become staples of today. Imagining life without electricity, transportation, smartphones, and social media is a nightmare for most of us.

Society can be defined as a community, a nation, or a broad group of people having common traditions, and collectively having the same overall ideas. The ‘human society’ and technology are co-evolving, in surprising ways.

As we spearhead into the digital age, technology is booming at such a rapid pace we cannot even wear out our devices before the newer, more up-to-date models arrive. It is affecting the growth of the economy, our culture, and our living standards. Most of what man has developed is to lead a more comfortable and luxurious life. People have stopped using their brains for simple tasks because they have the technology to serve them. This has created a void in the society. The rich are becoming richer, and the poor – poorer. A February 2018 New World Wealth report claimed that India is the second-most ‘unequal’ country in the world, with millionaires controlling 54% of the wealth. India’s average national income is $1,800 (about Rs 132,300) a year. However, 80% of Indians earn less than the average. Only 6% of Indians earn more than Rs 240,000 a year. To get into the top 1% bracket, one needs to make just over $20,000 (Rs 1,469,600) a year. And this top 1% is generating 73% of the wealth.

Social isolation is increasing, people spend more time playing video games, are more interested in learning how to use modern technology than learning life skills, use social media, and neglect their real life. Technology has replaced our traditional ways of interacting. If a user can easily interact with friends online, they feel no need to go out to make new friends, which at a later stage can lead to loneliness.

“All of the biggest technological inventions created by man – the airplane, the automobile, the computer – says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness”, said Mark Kennedy. This quote is now more relevant than ever, as in this age of modern technology we as people are becoming lazier by the minute. Modern technology and automation have replaced humans for their jobs. In the manufacturing sector of business, the packaging is solely done by machines, increasing the production rate, efficiency, and quality of the product. Unskilled laborers are losing their jobs to these machines, much similar to the Industrial Revolution that happened a few centuries ago.

Modern technology has been the main aid in the increasing of endless wars. It supports the manufacturing of modern war weapons, so when these weapons get into the hands of criminals, they will use them for selfish reasons. In addition, these weapons often severely damage the natural Earth, making some areas uninhabitable. People have been able to develop new and more destructive forms of heavy-impact weaponry because of this bane to humankind and Earth alike.

Since India’s rise to independent fame, it has undergone constant evolution as far as technology is concerned. From not being able to produce simple objects to now creating nuclear-powered missiles and torpedo-shooting submarines (fun fact – India has the 4th fastest supercomputer in the world). Commendable steps have been taken in the space department too, from launching India’s first satellite in 1975 named Aryabhatta, to now generating revenue by sponsoring other countries to launch their first.

Today’s industries are on the lookout for newer and more efficient technology to have an edge over their competitors. Many pieces of research from many reputed firms show that whenever companies cut back on technology investments aiming to shore up profits, the result is the opposite, as profits sink significantly, and, as a side effect, GDP (gross domestic product, a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a period of time, often annually) also falls dramatically, then a chain reaction starts with the fall of labor productivity after a few years. The drop in technology intensity results from a decline in technology. The loss in technology intensity impacts the loss of the world GDP, clearly proving that more companies need to invest in newer forms of technology to maintain stability in the world’s economy.

The transformative impact of technology on the modern global workplace is noticeable. Face-to-face meetings have often given way to video conferences, mailrooms to email inboxes, and typewriters and carbon paper to computer-generated writing. Technology has also allowed a substantial portion of work – and the workforce – to move beyond the confines of a traditional office. It is common for employees to perform some of their work in cafes or shops, at home, or even while on vacation. This technological revolution brings with it many obvious benefits. Colleagues can easily communicate across the globe while reducing expenses, environmental damage, and manual effort. Productivity has undoubtedly increased with the help of search engines. Online maps, global positioning systems, and real-time translation services help us navigate unfamiliar places and communicate with locals. GPS navigational systems have revolutionized traveling.

In his essay ‘The Technology of Medicine’, Lewis Thomas describes the three levels of technology in the medical world: ‘nontechnology’, ‘halfway technology’, and ‘effective technology’. ‘Nontechnology’ has become the therapeutic part of technology that helps patients through the emotional and mental effects that a disease can have on them. ‘Halfway technology’ is the name given to procedures such as transplants, etc. And ‘effective technology’ is the day-to-day technology used in the medicinal field. Without technology, humans could not possibly know as much as we do about fatal diseases such as AIDS and cancer. Although we have not yet invented a cure for either disease, we have developed many drugs and other sources of treatment that could help hold the patient longer. In the case of cancer, many people have even been able to overcome the disease through treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation. Stephen Jay Gould focuses on one of these terrifying diseases in his essay ‘The Terrifying Normalcy of AIDS’. Gould states that in the past doctors recognized how limited their knowledge of AIDS was, scaring the population that everyone could be susceptible to AIDS, but by using technology along with the help of the human brain, we will, prospectively, find a cure for these life-threatening diseases.

Technology has also provided families with the boon of life. Kids, every day, are born prematurely, meaning they can’t breathe on their own, so they need to be set on breathing tubes that provide an alternative way to breathe. If not for this gift, many young couples wouldn’t have had the chance to experience this feeling of euphoria and the joy that comes with the tiny being.

The importance of the ‘World Wide Web’ is massive as it is the source of any and all information. You can be anywhere and get the latest news, you can even buy or sell stocks and shares from your bedroom.

Communication is essential to growth. We cannot progress without communication. Modern technology has blessed us with advanced communication technology tools. These include e-fax, electronic mail, mobile phones, video conferencing, instant text messaging applications, social networking, etc. All these modern communication technology tools have simplified the way humans and businesses communicate.

Technological advancements in transportation have allowed people to travel long distances in the span of a few hours. It has also improved the lifestyle of people. Entertainment and music systems are very common in many households. It has also highly impacted the educational sector of modern society. Where e-books have taken over hardcopies and starboards are far more efficient in conveying information than whiteboards.

In conclusion, technology does have its negative impacts but they are far inferior to its positive ones. It can legitimately save lives, it has also become a part of the household, so even if people consider it harmful, they can’t do anything about it. But yes, technology has evolved modern human society. For the better? We don’t know.