The Role of Technological Change in Culture

This excerpt is written by the CEO of Orange Business Services. Richard Van Wageningen is an expert in the IT and telecommunications industry. He writes an intriguing excerpt about the role of technological change in culture. The article speaks about the way technology has changed literally every aspect of our lives including the absence of human touch and the worsening of the cultural divide caused by lack of accessibility and availability in countries that are not as developed, causing a digitally divided society.  In fact, Van Wageningen points out in the article that “many facets of global communications today are influenced by cultural differences – be it email, Skype, social media or the telephone. In my experience, regardless of your preferences, the key to communicating successfully is understanding and respecting all of our differences to enable a positive impact”(2017). What I found interesting was Van Wageningen’s thoughts on technology’s inability to replace human interaction. Because we are social human beings, Van Wageningen felt that in order for technological changes to have a greater impact on culture, we as communication professionals and society as a whole needed to find a way to “combine the human and digital elements to communicate across our borders (2017). 

References

Van Wageningen, R. (2017). The Role of Technological Change in Culture. Orange Business Services. Retrieved from https://www.orange-business.com/en/blogs/connecting-technology/innovation/the-role-of-technological-change-in-culture