Technology and innovation has played a very significant role in the evolution of mankind from the primitive age to the modern era. Technology has affected every aspect of human development that includes economy, society, commerce, industry and others. Since, the impact of technology is extremely vast, the main focus of this particular essay is on the economics and societies that are affected and impacted by technology and innovation (Leyden & Link, 2015). Technology literally means the art of craft but in reality, it refers to any significant development that has massively benefitted mankind. While the initial forms of technology included stone tools, basic crafts and others, today, even the development of an internet connection is also considered as technology. While modern technology has many faces, its impact on modern economics and society is very much evident (Mowery et al., 2015). Modern technology has promoted the innovation of various useful gadgets and facilities that have boosted the growth of economics and the evolution of the society.
In this essay, the impact of technology and innovation on the economics and societies has been analyzed using reference from literature and appropriate discussions have been made.
Technology can be realistically defined as any development that provides benefit for the mankind. Technology includes small objects like tools to large objects like machineries. Technology also includes the various systems of daily usage like internet connection, telephonic connection and others.
According to Gosens, Lu and Coenen (2015), technological innovation has played a major role in the development of economics of the modern world. Without the aid of technology, economics was unbalanced, often inaccurate and there was no proper input and output systems that are required from the economics of any nation. In the age of monarchy around the world, economy was controlled by a single person i.e. the monarch and there was no suitable framework to utilize the economy for the overall development of the nation / empire. However, with the development of technology and innovation of various tools and techniques in the mid-20th to the 21st century, economy has evolved significantly (Cohen & Sundararajan, 2015). There are technical tools available for monitoring the input and output of the economy and also controlling the economy of the nation as per the conditions require. There are also specific tools that can be used to analyze economic data and predict the future trends of economics. Hence, it can be rightly said that technological innovation has significantly affected and benefitted the economics with the advanced tools that have been developed throughout the years.
Authors Golembiewski, Sick and Bröring (2015) have discussed about the impact of technological innovation on human society. According to them, technological development has played a massive role in the modernization of the human society. One major technological innovation that has impacted the human society is the social medium. Social medium can be defined as the online social platform where the people from various parts of the world can interact with each other over a common platform. While the invention of telephone has been considered to reduce the distances between two different parts of the world as one person was able to talk to another person in a different part of the world (Guo et al., 2016). However, social medium has truly reduced the distance as two persons can interact without having to wait for telephonic connection or even high rates of payment for the telephone calls. Furthermore, one telephonic connection can only be used for interaction between two people. On the other hand, social media can be used for interaction between thousands of people within one single people. Hence, social media can be used for public discussions, online voting and other purposes. These social interactions within the people have significantly promoted the growth and modernization of the society as well as social unity. For instance, after a certain mishap or a public uprising, people can use the social media to spread the news and gather more and more participants from around the world (Wu, Nager & Chuzhin, 2016). Again, social media can be used by the business organizations for promotions and advertisements as they will have much better reach that normal advertisements and billboards. In addition, using social media for advertisements also saves a lot of expenses from the regular advertisements and promotions.
Social medium is not the only technological invention that has benefitted the human society. From the initiation of the technological age, technological innovations have been rolled out that have either improved the quality of life of the people or enhanced various processes like agriculture, manufacturing and others that fulfill the daily requirements of the societies around the world (Narula, 2014). Technology has also allowed people to travel large distances within a very short time as well as perform advanced operations for promoting social modernization.
However, although most of the authors have discussed about the impact of technology on society and the benefits that the society has received, many of the authors have mostly ignored or discussed the negative impacts that the technology has on the human society as well as economics (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017). Based on the data collected from the literature as well as study on real life case studies, the positive and negative impacts of technology and innovation on economics as well as society are as follows.
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Technological Innovation |
Economics |
Societies |
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Positive Impacts |
Control over the flow of economy is much more easier, error free and faster. Specific economical framework can be developed based on the requirements of the country. Prediction of future trends is now possible using various analytics tools. |
Technology has significantly improved the quality of life of the people. Various people in the society can now interact together within the same platform. Social development is boosted using the social media platforms. Various activities like online polling, promotions and advertisements are possible due to the technological innovations. Crowdfunding and mass gatherings are possible due to the technological inventions involving social media. |
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Negative Impacts |
Due to automation caused by the technological innovations, many people have lost employment. The available technological innovations are not sufficient for controlling economic metrics like GDP, productivity, corporate profits. Technological innovation does not provide absolute information security; any unauthorized personnel can use advanced hacking techniques to breach the server and steal confidential national information regarding economy. Use of tools like analytics does not ensure success; the tools can only be used for rough estimation. Human intelligence is not available in the technological tools that are being used in economics. |
As people are more inclined towards the technological innovations, they spend too much time with the technical gadgets instead of performing their regular activities. Technical gadgets like smartphones, televisions, computers and others provide massive distractions for young learners and school children. Personal information of the people often gets stolen through data breach occurrences in the internet. Overuse of technology in modern world has given rise to several global problems like pollution, depletion of natural resources and others. Technology often leads to social development in an uncontrollable manner. |
Etzkowitz and Ranga (2015) discussed that the impact of technology on society is so vast that it is not possible to prepare just a list of advantages and disadvantages. However, the author has discussed about some specific impact where technology has been mostly successful. These are discussed as follows.
Agriculture – Technology has made a huge impact on agriculture. In the early days, agriculture was done manually and farming animals due to which, the production was slow and inefficient. With the advent of agriculture technology, the entire process has been mechanized. From leveling of the farming land, sowing of seeds, watering to harvesting, every agricultural activity can now be done using technical devices and vehicles (Bason, 2018). As a result, the process has become faster and much more efficient. On the other hand, the processes have become much more expensive such that many of the farmers are not able to afford the technology. Hence, this technology is not yet feasible for agriculture in spite of all the benefits available.
Transportation – Technology has also evolved the transportation system around the world. In the ancient times, the modes of transportation included animals like horses, animal drawn carts and later wooden ships for navigation. With technology, numerous modes of transportation have been developed that include roadways, railways, metro railways, planes, massive ships and others (Goss, 2015). These modes of transportation are much faster and transport passengers and cargo at unbelievable speeds. Using these modes of transportation, people can travel to any country from any location around the world without much difficulty.
Communication – Communication process has been significantly facilitated by the evolution of technological innovations. The innovation started with the first wired telephone through which people could communicate within very short distances. Currently, in the field of communication, there are wireless mobile phones, internet connection and others through which, people can communicate over large distances from anywhere to anywhere on the earth (Garden et al., 2016). Communication is also successfully established within a certain range of the space outside of the earth.
Digital Identity – With the development of the internet technology, any individual can now create his own digital identity that includes several methods of verification for the identification of the individual later on (Weaver et al., 2017). Using digital identity, a person can perform various activities in the internet like interaction with other people, promote services or products, purchase items from ecommerce websites and others as well as for his own identification.
Education and Learning Process – The education system has undergone a revolution after the implementation of suitable technology (Ulnicane, 2015). Introduction of computer in the education system has resulted in faster and more efficient teaching process that involves interactive learning process, distance learning, presentation based learning and others.
There are also negative impacts of technology on the human society that are summarized and discussed as follows.
Depletion of Resources – With the development of mining technology, the natural resources like coal, oil, natural gas and others are mined at a fast pace and with great efficiency. As a result of continuous mining, the resources are getting depleted and within the next few decades, some of the major resources will be completely finished. This is a significant concern of the rapid pace of technological development.
Increased Population – With the development of medical technology, the birth rates have increased by a considerable margin and in turn, the population of the earth is expanding in an exponential manner (Hutter et al., 2015). As a result of the steep increase in population, the food, water and other resources are also becoming reduced and insufficient.
Increased Pollution – As a result of constant development of technology, the pollution is also increasing at an alarming pace that in turn causes unwanted effects like global warming, melting of polar ice caps, increasing toxicity of air and others. Uncontrolled development of technological innovation will further aggravate the issue although in recent years, efforts have been made to emphasize more on eco-friendly technology instead of harmful technologies.
Conclusion
From the analysis, it is evident that technological innovation has made a significant impact on economy and society. As evident from real life case studies, technological innovation has played a major role in the development of economics as well as the societies of the modern world. Without the aid of technology, economics was unbalanced, often inaccurate and there was no proper input and output systems that are required from the economics of any particular nation. On the other hand, with the help of technology, modern society has evolved as well as the qualities of lives of people have increased considerably. However, amidst all the positive impacts of technology, there are also negative impacts that are less explored but have given rise to global problems like pollution, unemployment, depletion of resources and others. Based on the overall analysis, it can be said that technology has both positive and negative sides. Hence, it is important to roll out the innovations in such a way that the negative impacts are minimized. It is also important to control the progress of technology and allow rolling out only those innovations are mostly necessary in the current world setup.
References
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Bast, G., Carayannis, E. G., & Campbell, D. F. (Eds.). (2015). Arts, research, innovation and society. Springer International Publishing.
Cohen, M., & Sundararajan, A. (2015). Self-regulation and innovation in the peer-to-peer sharing economy. U. Chi. L. Rev. Dialogue, 82, 116.
Drucker, P. (2014). Innovation and entrepreneurship. Routledge.
Etzkowitz, H., & Ranga, M. (2015). Triple Helix systems: an analytical framework for innovation policy and practice in the Knowledge Society. In Entrepreneurship and Knowledge Exchange (pp. 117-158). Routledge.
Garden, H., Bowman, D. M., Haesler, S., & Winickoff, D. E. (2016). Neurotechnology and society: Strengthening responsible innovation in brain science. Neuron, 92(3), 642-646.
Geissdoerfer, M., Savaget, P., Bocken, N. M., & Hultink, E. J. (2017). The Circular Economy–A new sustainability paradigm?. Journal of Cleaner Production, 143, 757-768.
Golembiewski, B., Sick, N., & Bröring, S. (2015). The emerging research landscape on bioeconomy: What has been done so far and what is essential from a technology and innovation management perspective?. Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies, 29, 308-317.
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