Materiality and Organizing

Few people would dispute the claim that new technologies bring changes to the way people communicate, act, and organize their social relations. Technologies such as tablet computers certainly have transformative potential. Users of iPads recognize that their relationship to the office has changed now that they are perpetually connected, and users of social media have found that their private lives are now much more public than they once were.

The Information Society, 2013

While digital technology has been with us from early 19th century, its accelerated introduction into mass-culture can be roughly attributed to mass-marketing of Personal Computers, the PCs, in 1980ies (Reimer). Since then in mere 30 years every sphere of human life has been subjected to some degree of digitization, be it on the level of use of simple calculator, digital watch or mobile phone, or active online “surfing”, blogging, actively partaking in multiuser networking and gaming or working in the IT-related field. This situation not only signals of the ever accelerating largely techno-centric social transformation, but also pinpoints the paradigmatic shift of global world culture towards Information Society, described by Toffler as the society of Third Wave. "In a Third Wave economy, the central resource – a single word broadly encompassing data, information, images, symbols, culture, ideology, and values – is actionable knowledge” (Dyson, Esther; Gilder, George; Keyworth, George;Toffler, Alvin ). Even within this earliest phase one can already identify evolutionary phases of development, which can be very generally described by the concept of convergence, conglomeration or even consumption-unification. This convergence is taking place on the technological, economic, social and personal levels. Technologically one witnesses a combination of miniaturization and multipurpose approaches, leading to more and more advanced mobile personal computers at the same time possessing traits of communication devices, cameras, flashlights, navigation systems, television sets and entertainment platforms (a smartphone). Economically both in terms of management, control, production, time and location, we witness convergence of human worker with software and hardware, which are able to incorporate ever-growing multitude of functions. A miniature device is able to provide one with knowledge and in part skills of an engineer, developer, designer and producer, gradually heading for substitution of human workforce or at least enabling for outsourcing of most projects on the local level (work from home) and the global level (research and development abroad, joint real-time international development). Now the central element in human experience is that of personal and social life, which, notwithstanding the importance of issues of class, labor, means of production, et cetera, is the core of everyone’s experience (social networking). At the same time personal computers incorporated and at large substituted diverse forms of entertainment (music, television, cinema, library, sports, sex…), work (coding, writing, researching, banking, calculating…) and communication (audio, video, textual, experimentally even sensory). As a consequence, while digitization didn’t replace physical production and existence, it certainly assumed an equally important role and altered the ways in which we perceive and evaluate reality (time, space, social norms).

COMMUNICATION As per the rapid development of technology, everything has changed their style and shape. However, some changes seem very positive but on the other side, it affects many valuable and intimacy-booster factors negatively. Keeping relationship alive with people through electronic means is not as much effective as the real face to face interaction is, because face to face communication will enable you to get more as compare to being engaged in wireless communication. Thus, the upcoming discussion will reveal all the shortcomings of technologies that affect communication pessimistically. It's well-known that communication plays a vital role in human being society because maintaining the relationship with family members, peers, relatives, and with all those who are close to us and touches our lives in one way or another is indispensable. Simply if we observe people in our community nearly half of them have access to some sort of technological means such as Smartphone, computers, tablets, iPods, and much more types of devices to use it for stable contacts instead of visiting and communicating closely and physically. According to Larry Rosen, virtual communication is not commendable like real world interactions. To see the enrichment and ubiquity of technological devices we are obliged to interact more with virtual friends than real-world people. As addiction, communication through electronic means takes more time than real-world communication even we know that it keep us in distance while not perceiving each other closely and intimately, despite of this, still publics; especially younger generations are using technological sources for communication and messages. And if we keep such a way of communication constant it will not let us interact personally. One study, conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, found people ages 8 to 18 spent more time on media than on any other activity – at an average of 7.5 hours a day (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). It would have been a very good thing that people had considered physically existed communication essential and important. If they were aware that how much the real world communication is useful that may not have been engaged as much in non-natural ways of communication as they currently are. In 2010, a study proved that as internet use increased, time spent with family and friends decreased while 39% of Americans spend more time socializing online than face-to-face (Brown 2013). We may think as we are social by using electronic means for keeping relationship but according to Sherry Turkle psychologist: not engaging in real world communication is just a sip of communication because we cannot get comprehensive results from the virtual exchange of information.

Interacting with Computers, 2005

2006

2013

Essentially, individual behavior, social networks, and government structures have, more frequently than not, changed for the better from technological change. Such change does not occur in a vacuum, of course, and “idea diffusion” and “blueprint copying” spread new, worthwhile inventions regionally and even globally, now at a more rapid pace than ever.