Impact of New Technology on Lifestyle and Health
THE IMPACT OF NEW TECHNOLOGY ON LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH – A
PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Håkan Alm hakan.alm@ltu.se Positive impact of technology
As a start I would like to give a short and simple definition of the concept “technology”.
Technology will, in this case and this paper, refer to any physical object, product, environment, or symbol that has been created by human beings. Another frequently used concept with the same meaning is “artifact” (Simon, 1969).
Technology has had a great impact upon the living conditions of people all over the world.
Technology has helped us to perform many tasks safer, faster, and with higher precision than would be possible without its help. Technology has also made us stronger, helped us to travel faster, and made it possible for us to perform tasks that otherwise would be impossible to perform.
With the help of technology we can perform many tasks that are dangerous for people to perform, like working in a hostile physical environment, for instance in a contaminated or radioactive environment. Technology has helped us to perform boring manual tasks day and night, every day in the week, even without a coffee brake.
Technology has made it possible for us to travel all over the world and reach new destinations, quicker than ever. Soon we might even travel to other planets in our Solar system. The invention of machines, computers and other technological artefacts has improved our mental abilities too. Technology can make us smart (Norman, 1993) by increasing our abilities to remember better, by storing information in different formats, and support our reasoning activities. Thanks to computers we can perform complex calculations quickly, simulate processes of different kind, create art and music, and so on. Technology has also helped us to pick up information that earlier was impossible to pick up. Microscopes and telescopes, only to mention a few technological devices, have made it possible for us to look into worlds that we otherwise
PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Håkan Alm hakan.alm@ltu.se Positive impact of technology
As a start I would like to give a short and simple definition of the concept “technology”.
Technology will, in this case and this paper, refer to any physical object, product, environment, or symbol that has been created by human beings. Another frequently used concept with the same meaning is “artifact” (Simon, 1969).
Technology has had a great impact upon the living conditions of people all over the world.
Technology has helped us to perform many tasks safer, faster, and with higher precision than would be possible without its help. Technology has also made us stronger, helped us to travel faster, and made it possible for us to perform tasks that otherwise would be impossible to perform.
With the help of technology we can perform many tasks that are dangerous for people to perform, like working in a hostile physical environment, for instance in a contaminated or radioactive environment. Technology has helped us to perform boring manual tasks day and night, every day in the week, even without a coffee brake.
Technology has made it possible for us to travel all over the world and reach new destinations, quicker than ever. Soon we might even travel to other planets in our Solar system. The invention of machines, computers and other technological artefacts has improved our mental abilities too. Technology can make us smart (Norman, 1993) by increasing our abilities to remember better, by storing information in different formats, and support our reasoning activities. Thanks to computers we can perform complex calculations quickly, simulate processes of different kind, create art and music, and so on. Technology has also helped us to pick up information that earlier was impossible to pick up. Microscopes and telescopes, only to mention a few technological devices, have made it possible for us to look into worlds that we otherwise
References: Bainbridge, L. (1987). Ironies of Automation. In J. Rasmussen, K. Duncan and J. Leplat (Eds.) New Technology and Human Error, John Wiley & Sons Ltd Kirwan, B., and Ainsworth, L.K. (Eds.) (1993). A guide to task analysis. Taylor & Francis Norman, D.A. (1993). Things that make us smart. PERSEUS BOOKS, USA Reason, J. (1990). Human error. Cambridge university press, USA Simon, H. (1969). The Science of the Artificial. The M.I.T. PRESS