Impact of Technological Innovations

By: Aaron Schwartz
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:25:23
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher |

Rating:

 

Recent years demonstrated that all aspects of our life have undergone rapid changes which have a great impact on the further development of political, social and economical relations. It is noteworthy that human race have never made so rapid progress and have never achieved such results in its development as people have done during the 20th century and the process is still in progress and, in all probability, it wouldn’t be stopped in the 21st century because there are no prerequisites of the contrary trends. According to general opinion of different researchers the 21st century is supposed to become a new age in the evaluation of human society due to scientific discoveries and the implementation of the latest technological achievements in our everyday life and such a trend is observed at the very beginning of the century when new technology made an unbelievably fast progress and in the first instance it concerns information technology. It is a widely known fact that information systems and technologies achieved really great results, particularly it concerns computer technologies, Internet, the development of wireless technologies and telecommunication. It seems logical enough that the achievements of information technologies are often implemented not only in business and commerce but also in political sphere and our everyday life. Nowadays the ability of any commercial, political or even social structure to use the newest information systems and technologies becomes the question of its survivability and progress because those who use technological innovations have a serious advantage over those who continue to run in a traditional manner. It is evident that the spread of IS and the most modern information technologies forced all the society at large and every individual in particular evaluate according to the demands of our time and those who are too conservative and even rigid are doomed to lose. In other words technological innovations have already become the most important part of human progress in practically all domains.

Obviously, technological innovations were particularly successfully introduced in wireless services, telecommunication, computer technologies, and, certainly, Internet. By the way wireless technologies are considered to be extremely prospective for they do not have such limitations that traditional, conventional technologies have and they are more economically feasible and less expansive than land lines when we speak about the most remote areas of developing countries where infrastructure is not developed. As a result, wireless networks become more and more spread all over the world even in developing countries, where, according to the latest researches, wireless technologies are spreading faster than radio and television. Naturally, the same trend is observed in well-developed countries of the North America and Europe. That may be proved by the fact that between 2000 and 2002 the number of subscribers was doubled (from 500 million to one billion users). Economical success of some companies in developing countries made some experts presuppose that developing countries could possibly skip an entire stage in the communication development that all developed countries passed. Unfortunately, it could hardly be realized in real life because existing companies are often closely tied to the local governments and, consequently, they use political influence to be economically successful that permits them to be monopolists in their country and not so eager to introduce new technologies. Moreover, some political regimes, mainly totalitarian or authoritarian, tend to control everything that may threat their stability. Naturally, wireless networks cannot be so easily controlled by such governments and, consequently, they oppose to introduction of such technologies in their countries. Unlike developing countries for North American and European countries have no such obstacles concerning the introduction of new wireless technologies, the development of computer networks and Internet nowadays become more and more popular and economically profitable. It results in a permanent growth of e-commerce but difference of well-developed countries from developing ones is the independence of private business from governmental structures. In general, it is necessary to underline that in well-developed countries the share of information technologies in GDP constantly grows and tend to dominance. It is not surprising that such results are provided by a rapid technological progress. It concerns not only wireless technologies for telephony but Internet and computer technologies as well. Nowadays, in the most developed countries the spread of Internet and computer technologies is so wide that even very sophisticated software is often used in households. Moreover, there is a very interesting: information workers and IT or IS specialist, whose share in the labor force in the USA constituted 55 percent, may work not in an office but at their homes regardless where they geographically live that makes some firms in post-industrial countries distribute work not only among their local soft ware engineers but also send projects to other countries, such as India, where the qualification of personnel is high enough whereas the wages are much lower. Thus, it helps to enlarge the labor market, improve competitiveness, overcome geographical boundaries and, at the same time, make the final product cheaper without deterioration of its quality. But, unfortunately, not all nations have equal opportunities to participate in this process since the least developed countries the use of Internet and computer technologies is quite problematic because of low educational level or illiteracy of the population of these countries that often make them prefer oral communication through cell phones on their native language rather than using Internet.

As any global process the introduction of technological innovations, particularly wireless networks, Internet and computer technologies, influence not only economy but social life as well. According to a Business Week/Harris poll released April 28, 1997, of the 89 percent of those who used e-mail, nearly one-third considered themselves part of an online community. Forty-two percent of those involved in an online community said that it was related to their profession, 35 percent said that their community was a social group, and 18 percent said that it revolved around a hobby. On analyzing this data, we come to a logical conclusion that we observe a shift in the people understanding of a traditional notion of the community. For large media networks focus on information that could appeal to possibly wider audience it could cause certain local information gaps for those who live either in suburb or rural areas. At the same time, new technologies, particularly in telecommunication, may contribute to end urban dominance over rural areas making them closer to one another. But in developing countries we observe people lacking of information and technological innovations may serve to provide people any information. On the contrary, in well-developed countries the abundance of information and the most sophisticated means to its transmission people are overwhelmed by it making them a bit isolated from the life of their local community.

Finally, I would like to underline a great impact of IT and IS on political life. During last fifty years all achievements in this field were thoroughly analyzed and if possible implemented. The role IT plays in the modern word may be better understood due to the fact that the Clinton Administration paid so much attention to the idea of the National Informational Superhighway. On analyzing strategic documents of the administration concerning this problem, I would emphasize that the key idea is that the country, which dominates information technologies, will also dominate the world. Another evidence of the importance of information technologies is a rapid development of computer networks which connected not only people but, furthermore, it permitted people as well as any public organization to have easy and fast access and possibility of communication with the government. In other words, introduction of new information technologies and IS made a government closer to people, working faster, and more effectively for the government using the latest technological innovations, particularly in the information field, is more productive due to decrease of time for routine work, especially paper work. Such ‘an e-government’ also stimulates introduction of innovations. Unlike businesses which use IT mainly to increase their income, the government use technologies to improve its administration and to build interaction not only with separate individuals but with the whole society. As a result, governmental computer networks and web sites are created but it is mainly the characteristic of highly developed countries.

Article source: Expert Articles