Technologies Not Only Influence but Actually Determine
The advance of technologies is attributed to the further and deeper perception that humans rationally and logically explore the nature. Such advancement leads to the change of social customs and ethics that used to be accord with the former human understanding; after all social customs and ethics, by nature, are changeable. However, whether the influence of technologies over social customs and ethics are determining is still a question worth pondering and arguing. Since human stared using tools to create things, technology has been penetrating into almost every aspect of people’s daily lives.
In the contemporary world, with respect to technologies, computing technologies quickly come to mind. As a professor once said, I quote: “Electronic computation is the first to significantly amplify our mental abilities and furnish radical insights into the complexities and inner workings of our world. It is not just the ability to collect, store and process data on a massive scale, or even communication, but the opening of our minds to new and often hidden possibilities—that is real power.
There is no denying that the growth and spread of computing technology have been significant things that we witness and indeed experience personally. Cell phones, for example, have been through from rarity to ubiquity. They change lives without people’s notice. For instance, billions of people enjoy digital messages from phone to phone, yet it never occurs to people to think of the microprocessors and computer power required behind just a message.
Nevertheless, texting has already become a part of our daily life and expanded another of way daily communication. Moreover, it renders long-distance calling much easier and more convenient. Lives are replete with hundreds of technologies. Despite technologies do have influence over social customs and ethics, it is, however, unjustifiable to say that social customs and ethics are determined by technologies, because the impact of influence is much less forced than that of determination.
From time immemorial, society has been a system that is organized with social norms and ethical standards followed by all people who live in, and these traditions that are deeply rooted in people’s mind and heart have been passed down from generation to generation in culture. For instance, Chinese people value lunar calendar a lot and celebrate many traditional festivals by lunar calendar, and one of the most well-known festivals is Chinese New Year.
When it comes to the Spring Festival, Chinese people significantly weigh the festival than other festivals, and the traditions of Spring Festival dating back to the old times are still preserved by people in modern times, such as making dumplings, and clipping paper cutting etcetera. Technologies bring us convenience that any of those can be reached anytime and that we do not have to make them ourselves for lack of time, but technologies can never be influential and powerful to the extent that people stop celebrating this festival.
Chinese people would consistently maintain these festival traditions annually from generation to generation instead of letting them be determined by technologies. To sum up, technology advances as humans’ understanding about nature goes deeper and further. It does have influence over social customs and ethics undoubtedly. It is, however, not able to supersede cultural traditions in people’s lives, because social customs and ethics bring us the sense of belonging and security, while technologies just give us ease and satisfy our curiosity which just comes from people’s evolving perception towards nature.
