After reading up to chapter 5 in “Computers the life story of a Technology” I came away with several observations and relationships between technology and culture. Although the first half of the book was not the most catching of reading material, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was actually quite interesting. In the first chapter of the book it really describes all of the work that has been put into developing these technologies that we have in our culture today, not only do people in our culture take the technology that we have for granted, it made me realize that we take for granted people like Charles Babbage and what they sacrificed for technology. I found Babbage to be the most influential person in chapter 1; this mathematician sacrificed what many would say his life. In his creations, he lost his family and his health severely declined due to his work in creating technology. “Babbage lost his wife, daughter, and father, and his own health deteriorated,” (pg. 15). This can even relate back to American culture today because I see people losing friends and distancing themselves from family because of technology. For example I see people all the time glued to their computers and T.V’s and not ever wanting to move or go out and be social. This can affect friends because people stop calling that individual because they never want to go out or move from their apartments. This can also affect health because people like this never want to go out and exercise which is a key part of an individual’s health, and I am quite confident that this was part of Babbage’s health decline as well. It is sad that people get so caught up in technology to lose friends and become distant from family.
Chapter 2 talks about the advancement of technology through World War 2 and also following the war. A quote that I found very interesting on page 30 was as follows “World war 2 was a war of science and technology as much as it was a struggle between fighting men” (Pg. 30). The part of chapter 2 that really stuck out to me as a connection to today’s culture was the competitive spirit between all of these creators from different countries and companies. That’s what drove all of the creations through the war because countries needed better technology to give them an advantage. Just like in chapter 2 there are law suits often in our culture over ideas that people patent. This competitive attitude is still present today in the same way, scientists and inventors are constantly competing to develop the best technology.
The invention of the Transistor that it discuses in Chapter 3 I found to be the most interesting of this chapter and the easiest to relate to our culture. The book says “Vacuum tubes, constantly struggling to deal with excess heat, their bulky size, and their penchant for failure.” (Pg. 50). This was so interesting to me because you look at some of the technologies on the market today such as T.V’s and cell phones and people are always trying to decrease their size to make them more convenient for consumers. In my life time I have noticed a severe decrease in size of T.V’s from Box T.V’s that weight a ton to flat screens that are only about an inch in thickness which is amazing. The same goes with phones as well, my first cell phone was a pain to carry around because it did not fit into my pocket easily because it was bulky, and now that is never an issue. Cell phones are designed smaller and thinner to fit into your pocket conveniently. The mentality they discuss in the book and the mentality today has not changed, constantly reducing the size of technology and making it more convenient for consumers whoever they may be.
The last relationship that I found between technology and culture in chapter 4 comes from the characteristic that is so obvious in this chapter and the whole first half of the book. People are never satisfied with what they have, they are always trying to adjust things so they are better even they really are not better. This helped drive technology in the time periods talked about in the book and continues to drive technology today. For example on page 70 it discusses the invention of minicomputers. This is a smaller and more sophisticated technology that undoubtedly better than computers that are larger in size and less sophisticated. People being dissatisfied with the previous models of technology are what drove the invention of the minicomputer. The point being is technology can only get so good and so fast and do so much, but people will always be demanding something new and better when in reality it may not get any better. This could cause technology to get worst in the future because people will try to make something better that really cant improve therefore making it worst.
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