New communication technologies are the modern universal and powerful tools for human and society development in a globalized world. In the last three decades of the XX century were very popular a theory that depicted bright prospects for the construction of post-industrial society and the computer revolution. It was assumed that in developed countries, where the main characteristics of the labor are information and creativity, free spread of the information will open unlimited opportunities for self-realization of individuals in an open society. The accelerated development of computer technology and electronic communications equipment was also considered as a means of overcoming information barriers between societies. Thus, we are going to discuss impact of communication technology on business and personal life.
Nowadays we use communication technologies everyday and in all spheres of our life and, moreover, new communication technologies have led to many changes in everyday life over the past few decades. There is no doubt that the characteristics of new technologies force us to go beyond the traditional mass media. This new field can be called transactional media communication. For instance, the term ‘transactional’ means changing roles – the transition to such interpersonal communication relationships in which each party may in turn act as a sender, receiver or transmitter of information. Thus, there is an exchange of information, certain signs, and as a result of specific knowledge. The term ‘media’ in this context means that these technologies continue to include the media.
Modern society can not live and develop without the information – the most severe forms of public culture and the people in it, and acts as the creator, the distributor, and repository of information, interacting according to the example that includes ‘man – information – man’. Although, as historical evidence shows, the information (or its absence) has always played an important role in the development of society and personality. However, its impact is more updated during the spread of new information technologies.
Communication technologies can radically change the modern culture, morality, politics, and to transform the perception of time and space. Observing their pros it is seen that, for instance, the Internet, from the technical wonder, has rapidly become a routine information tool available to any potential user for the purpose of to find large amounts of data for every taste, while the cons lies in the fact that excessive use of media equipment (digital television, video game consoles, computers, Internet, phones, e-mails) change people’s reality because virtual reality sometimes begins to overshadow or even supplant the real world.
According to Büchel (2001), “the increasing standardization of communication technology, and more specifically its use, is changing the quantity, quality and means of production and distribution of information” (p. 2). The person and the business may receive a lot of advantages from the use of communication technologies because exactly today we can say that information led to the expansion of information links between regions, countries, nations, etc. As a result, contacts and mutual influences of different socio-cultural systems are amplified, and they lead to changes in material culture, customs and beliefs, that lead to acculturation in its turn.
Observing communication technologies as a tool, it is possible to mention that the person, creating new information systems, at the same time becomes the object of their feedback effect of forming the type of feedback in the system ‘man – an information technology’ in modern conditions. In this connection we can anticipate a new round of the spiral development of humanitarian culture. On the one hand, its pros are the following: synthetic character of rational and affect components of perception and communication, dissemination of new communication standards (communication at nonverbal, multimedia level), the emergence of new kinds of art (multimedia art), etc. will be typical for this turn of the spiral. On the other hand, its cons are possible virtualization of life: in virtual reality the person has the ability to directly create own ‘outside world’, the environment, cultural space.
Today, many note that the process of filling of a real by virtual greatly impacts on business and personal life; a man breaks away from the concrete things, he lost direct contact with other people, etc. In connection with this person badly adapts to changes, but this is not only due to the diffusion of new technologies. Computer virtual reality demands of a person the critical properties such as goal setting, creative thinking and improvisation. Computers, phones, and other technical devices become a tool of interaction in our hands. Earlier the person for the purpose of to enter into other worlds of culture, or to come into contact with them should use some efforts, turn own imagination and creativity, think about intelligent design of the world, meditation, auditory training, but now these functions are performed by a computer. On cultural and socio-pedagogical point of view it is essential to know what a man takes out of the virtual world into a constant, the base, the real one. In this regard, there is a change in cultural norms and cultural processes. We are witnessing a process of changing cultural patterns of society.
It is hard to imagine our world without contemporary communication technologies and it is hard to think that people could live without them less than century ago. It seems that our world would not survive without communication technologies because they became an integral part of it and many people all over the globe are engaged in this process of communication. Wood and Smith (2005) stated that “of course, interactions among two individuals can establish a relationship, but more contributors need to join the conversation for a virtual community to arise. The richness of different virtual communities is enhanced by the variety of people who participate and the contributions they make” (p. 128). Thus, informatization has led to a number of global changes. Telecommunications technologies claim a new electronic image of reality, creating a fragmented culture. They lead to the creation of super rich information field, which is commonly surrounds the modern man.
Thus, taking everything into consideration it is possible to conclude that it is impossible to overestimate the impact of communication technologies on business and personal life in contemporary reality. Communication technology can make our life more convenient and comfortable, but also threatens to ensnare it and make it devoid of spiritual aspiration stereotypes. Today people see around the real natural world and artificial information-symbolic universe created by the development of symbolic systems of mass audiovisual communications. In conclusion, people should be careful using communication technologies for the purpose of to protect own real life from virtual one.
References:
Büchel, B. (2001). Using Communication Technology: Creating Knowledge Organizations. Palgrave.
Wood, A. and Smith, M. (2005). Online Communication: Linking Technology, Identity, and Culture. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.