Technology Development's Essay

Technology? Not the strange word now. What is technology? Technology is tools, machines, or systems created and produced by human. They used by human too, in order to solve their life problems and help their work into easy, fast, and instant. Technology word came from Greek.  Techne mean method, meanwhile the word logia mean knowledge. Webster said, technology are "the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area" (Webster).  But according to Franklin, technology is "practice, the way we do things around here" (Franklin, 1989). Technology also medium to solve problem based on the culture (Sardar, 1987. 161) Technology can be viewed as an activity that forms or changes culture. Additionally, technology is the application of math, science, and the arts for the benefit of life as it is known. So many opinions about the definition of technology, but the important thing is technology make our live easier.

How about technology development? The simplest one is development which has changed people's life. Technology development is the continuous process of improving a technology (often becomes cheaper) and its diffusion throughout industry or society. In short, technological change is based on both better and more technology. Especially in Indonesia, the technology development made Indonesian people to have modern live. All people depend to the technology. They believe, technology will increase, increase, and always develop.

Since the beginning of 21^st century, Indonesian people has witnessed a great increase in technological advanced, and this has affected lifestyles in various way. Of course, it gives the positive and negative effects in people’s live, the easier in communicating, etc. (e-How). Technology has blended in with daily activity to become a way of everyday life for people to the point where they often take for granted the automated, instantaneous delivery of information.

Long ago, people did not know a lot about technology. They were communicating with other manually, meet face to face. Nowadays technology made us able to communicate quickly with people all over the world. For example, through the communication technology, cell phone made all of people unlimited communication. They could send SMS to another, even MMS. With internet, especially Facebook, we could communicate with people around the world with just sitting, and clicking. We can share informations, through statuses, or pictures. Let’s move to the transportation technology. All transportation depends on technology, whether it’s the wheel, the jet engine, or the computer chip. Transportation is not just technology. Because of technology, transportation became modern, faster, easier, and instant. Previously, people used pedicab, bicycle, or even walking to go to another places. Now? We can use motorcycle, car, or train. We can travel to another country by plane. Even, according to the Indonesian Motorcycle Industry Association, the number of own motorcycle users about 8.04 million in 2011. Let’s look from industrial side. Before now, people produced something manually or traditionally, but now we have machine, right? Machine made the factory or industry easily when produced something. Besides that, Indonesian economic growing, and that is happen industrialization in our country.

Furthermore, technology development affected society and culture. They could save our history by videos, images, or audios that children could never learn from book, the way to prevent the cultural extinction. Besides that, the technology development impacts the education in Indonesia. The simple example, nowadays many schools used the LCD and laptop in learning. Then, technology helps the students to solve their tasks, home works, or projects.

Besides positive effects, there are negative effects. With the transportation technology, the impact will be to our beloved earth. Lots of transportation means lots of smoke, smoke mean pollution. Moreover a faster world based on technology reduces the amount of time to be with ourselves. Even with cell phone, The National Cancer Institute is concerned that the widespread use of cell phones will lead to increases in cancer and other health issues, because the phones emit radiofrequency energy, which is a form of radiation. Then, there will be unemployment if Indonesian people did not have skills to hold technology. Character of consumptive and lavish will spawned a generation of moral decline. However, technology has not touched all people in Indonesia. According to Tempo.com (30/07/12) based on data in 2011, areas such as Maluku and Papua have not even touched by these technology.

The technology development will impact to the lifestyles, the way we live, and act. Indonesian lifestyles have changed as well to the modern. We imitated the western styles. People are thinking almost instantaneous and pragmatic.

In conclusion, we cannot avoid technology development. Technology will run along the growth of science and lifestyles will run along technology development. We must be smart to pick and choose. We take positives and throw negative. We have to use technology wisely.