Bringing it All Together

One of the most vastly used technologies of our time period is by far the modern cell phone. Almost every individual has one and uses one on a very regular basis these days and they are not just prevelent in the United States, but they are world-wide and ever expanding.

To recap just a little on where I started this blog versus where it has gone I want to re-cap just a bit. To begin with I discussed a bit of the history of the cell phone and where we were to where we have come. This technology truly has transformed drastically into an industrial society and has served as an intermediary between further industrial revolutions throughout society. Our phones have connected us on levels that were never dreamt of just ten to twenty years ago. Now-a-days we have applications for almost anything a user desires. No longer do we live in the days of just being able to place and receive calls, but now we can access numerous email accounts, bank accounts, news, weather, traffic, pretty much anything we so desire.

The move into the industrial society with special attention to the concrete organizational and cultural forms of technological innovation showed just how the cell phone technology is at the forefront of the industrual movement. Our abilities to connect and communicate in a moments notice have intertwined us with each other and our businesses on a twenty-four hour basis and the technological development only continues to grow and prosper. With newly innovated forms of unlimited internet access, more and more users have become dependent upon their phones for tasks they used to only be able to complete while being parked in front of a laptop or desktop. The innovation of the cell phone has on one side provided us with more physical freedom from our desks while on the other side has removed more of our personal freedom. No longer can we truthfully make claims that we are away from our cell phones, when honestly we just don't want to answer. We are more connected to oen another at all times and we are more disconnected from our personal freedoms from responsibility.

Another major issue that I went into depth on was the issue of privacy among personal cell phone users. As our phones continually get smarter and smarter and more capable, so do also those interested in hacking into our personal information. More and more information is being passed via text message or through so-called protected sites that opens us up to a world of wanted hacking information. Almost everyday the reports on internet fraud can be seen or read about and as time goes by and we keep requesting newer applications to further uncomplicate our complicated lives we will further open ourselves up to the possiblity of becoming the victim of one of those smart hackers. As the phones get smarter, so too, do the hackers that want our private, personal information.

Finally, just a note on the future of the information age and where we are headed with those handy little devices we all cherish so much. The cell phone has evolved faster than almost any other technology and becomes increasingly smaller and more user friendly. As people discover they desire a phone to preform a certain function, the creators that write the programs for those phones go to work. It seems every six months or so a brand new phone becomes old news and obsolete. Society always desires the next best thing and the newest, so the business is there for the newest technology. We gripe about a flaw and the flaw gets fixed then becomes the next best piece of technology available. I only see the cell phone as contiunally getting better and society figures out exactly what they want their devices to do. I am curious to see what these devices will cost as they become smarter and smarter and what new applications they will be used for. Who would have guessed they would have become what they are today after such a short period of time ago when virtually no one owned one of these amazing little gadgets.

The Future of the Information Age

When it comes to digital capital, I believe that the cell phone is forever responding to what the end user wants. We started with very large, heavy devices that solely were used to make and receive calls. Today, the industry has been driven by societal desires to do nearly everything and anything we could ever imagine.

Take for example the iPhone. I currently own an iPhone and I absolutely love it. I can check my email, bank accounts, weather, news, etc. at any time I desire. I also have the worlds supply of applications at my finger tips that will allow me to play numerous free games, there is an application for a compass, a flashlight, backgrounds, the list goes on forever. This is just a demonstration of how this particular industry has grown to face the wants and needs of the consumer.

It is very much like the evolution of the MP3 for digital music. They started out very basic and today many of us depend on them day in and day out. New artists are being discovered at a daily pace rather than taken two and a half years to be finally discovered, as Elvis was. It is simply incredible to see how certain industries can thrive off of the new wants and needs of the consumers and to really respond in such a fashion at such a great speed.

I find that my industry's position in the Tranquility piece was very clear. The cell phone certainly belongs with the first image painted. The one where technology moves at such high speeds that we must keep up with or we'll get lost, even if we don't know what our next move is going to be to keep up with one another. Cell phones are an instantaneous way of sending and receiving data.

The text message seems to be one of the largest booms at the moment and can keep up connected to our friends, families, co-workers, you name it, at any given time. We are of the information age and cell phones have been one of the driving forces that has enabled us to be where we are. No longer do we wait for hand-written letters to arrive via postal worker in our mailboxes. Now we simply check our inbox's whenever we are expecting something.

As impersonal as it is, this is what we have developed ourselves into. No longer do we patiently wait, we have come to expect things to be at our finger tips and because of this we have set ourselves into a technological trap than we would choose not to live without.

Government regulations, politics, laws and attitudes regarding technology and technologies effect on innovation

The following is the Websters dictionary definition of Privacy:

Main Entry:
Function:
noun

1 a: the quality or state of being apart from company or observation : seclusion b: freedom from unauthorized intrusion; one's right to privacy
2archaic : a place of seclusion
3 a: secrecy b: a private matter : secret


It today's modern world we are all head over heels with the idea of keeping our information and personal matters private. While many applications are made to ensure our privacy, things still leak. Cell phones have become and increasingly amazing way of passing information to one another and also for accessing many institutions where private information is held such as banks, credit card accounts, email inbox's and many many more. Even with the privacy protection in place people are being fraudulently attacked everyday. Our own technological advances have led to our own private demise.

As the phones get smarter and more capable, so too, do the people that use them and the hackers that thrive off of invading others personal information. It can be information as simple as a text message that is meant for the eyes of only one individual that can get leaked and will spread like wild fire through the halls of a gossipy high school, thus ruining the life of the individual involved. More and more information is shared each day through this "thumb tribe", as my mother refers to it, generation. The newest fad has become "sexting" which is extremely private, yet shared over and over again. It takes only an instant to send an indecent picture that will remain known forever if it by chance falls into the wrong hands.

Even with the majority of phones having the ability to be locked by password, these leaks occur. Passwords can be guessed and broken through almost instantly these days. How do we go about securing ourselves from outside intruders when it is us that readily makes the information available to those hackers? Will we ever be to a place where we are "in a state of being apart from company or observation? I don't believe we ever will be and actually, I believe we were closer to the definition of privacy before all of the technological advances took place. So along with our development I feel we need to become accustomed to the idea that the information we share through our cell phones can and most likely will be accessed by others we wish not to have access to it. It is a part of advancement that we must face.

The move to an Information Society: attention is given to the concrete organizational and cultural forms of technological innovation

I believe that cell phones have been at the forefront of the industrial move to an information society. One very large advancement that cell phones have provided us with is the instant ability to communicate with one another as well as with our vendors that provide the inventory we desire and the clients that we provide those products to.

Cell phones with Internet capabilities allow us to be in constant contact with our businesses at all times. One could check sales either from the previous day or with an accurate control system they could even be checked on an up to the minute basis. Instant messages can be utilized to know when a delivery is going to come in late, and by approximately how late. We can be in contact with our drivers behind the wheel to know exactly what is going on at all times.
One downside of cell phone technology is the inability to be out of contact with ones business issues when one is on vacation or at home on their personal time.

Because it is pretty well known that almost everyone carries a phone, it is known that people can be gotten a hold of in an instant. I have felt this many times myself while being in a management position at my organization. I have been called in to work on a moments notice when an employee fails to show for their shift, or I have spent hours on the phone walking a new manager through a process that I know like the back of my hand. This really dips into ones personal freedom and ability to recuperate from an excruciating week at work. It has been unheard of for me to go away for more than two days without receiving a text or call from my workplace. I fear as society becomes more and more technologically dependent that our Independence is going to whither away to something of a fond memory from the past.

The Transformation to an Industrial Society

Cell phones have become such the norm these days that few of us stop to think about the world that went on prior to them. As time has gone by a phenomenal transformation has occurred in the way that we as humans communicate and stay connected to one another. From the dawning of time people have always found ways to communicate with each other and to stay connected, but back then it was much more face to face. That was the only way. These days we are almost controlled by the little devices that we so lovingly strap to our hips each day or stuff into our pockets. Many of us, myself included, feel naked, lost and completely disconnected from the world without constant access to our phones. Once upon a time we would hear news by reading newspapers or watching the local news, now with our devices we simply pull up the world wide web any time we desire or have time to do so. Another transformation is the way we do our banking. No longer do we wait in lines to transfer funds from one account to another, nor do we call from our POTS lines to check our account balances. We can do this through our tiny devices, whenever and where ever we feel fit. I know that the technology for cell phones has been around for quite some time now, but it seems they have taken a rapid growth spurt and they have opened up our options for communicating and taking care of business at an enormously fast rate these last few years.

Technology Topic

I will be focusing my blog on the technology of cell phone and their usage. I know that cell phones play a great role in modern social interactions and I would like to learn a little more about just how much of a role they play. I would like to explore the health benefits along with the risks and perhaps get an insight view into what is to come with the role of personal cell phones. It amazes me to see the statistics on how many people of all ages carry a cell phone today versus just ten years ago.