Now that you have been introduced to the many concepts that technology affects the world, it is now your turn to demonstrate your knowledge on the way digital sociology is involved in the employment industry.

How has having access to digital technology positively contributed to increasing employment?
What role has digital technology played in increasing levels of unemployment?
Discuss some of the structural changes and workforce changes that organizations have had to make in the last 5 years to account for advancements in technology? How has this impacted society?
Make sure to use a minimum of 3 credible references. Include an APA formatted reference page.
Make sure to include a title page.

Technology in Daily Living

To fully understand how technology has changed society, we need to look at the many and diverse ways in which digital technologies have invaded everyday life in developed countries over the past thirty years. Many have come to rely upon being connected to the internet throughout the waking hours. We now have digital devices that can go online from almost any location, for example, Smartphones and tablet computers are small enough to carry with us at all times. Some devices – known as wearable computers (‘wearables’ for short) monitor bodily functions and activities. We can also access the news, music, television and fims via digital platforms and devices.

Our intimate and work relationships, as well as our membership of communities may be at least partly developed and maintained using social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Our photographs and home videos are digitized and can be displayed to the world if we so desire, using platforms such as Instagram, Flickr and YouTube.

Information can easily be sought on the internet using search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. The open- access online Wikipedia has become the most highly used reference source in the world. Nearly all employment involves some form of digital technology use (even if it is as simple as a website to promote a business or a mobile phone to communicate with workers or clients).

The result of all these technological advances, the way communities are formed, the way employment is achieved and education is acquired has changed. We do have people who claim that they have not allowed themselves to be influenced by the digital advancements around them. They refuse to use cell phones, computers, and digital cameras or even update to cable television. What they don’t realize is they are serving the unseen and unrealized elements of digitization. Even when they avoid using a smartphone, digital camera or social media platform, they invariably will find themselves interacting with those who do. They may even find that digital images or audio files of themselves will be uploaded and circulated using these technologies by others without their knowledge or consent. What has developed even for those “non-users” are advances to their social community while they remain old school!

icon showing no phones

In short, we now live in a digital society. The last decade major changes have seen the introduction of devices and platforms:

Personal computers were introduced to the public in the mid-1980s.
The World Wide Web was invented in 1989 and was available for us to use finally in 1994.
Since 2001, significant platforms and devices have been released that have had a major impact on social life.
Data Development

To fully grasp some of the technological changes, click on the image below to complete an activity matching the device or site with the date associated with their development.

Note: Link the words in groups. Click here and then complete its group according to the criteria specified on the top. If you want to unselect an element, click on it again.

Reference:

Lupton, D. (2015). Digital sociology (1st edition). New York, NY: Routledge.