In this unit’s assigned reading, Jones talks about the development of technology. She explains that technology aids in the maintenance and change of culture. There is one excerpt that I want to talk about that Jones states in the reading:
“As time passes the original users develop familiarity and facility. New users bring additional assumptions and considerations of form, content, material, technique, meaning and purpose. However, some traces of the origins and practices remain in these forms, which consequently contribute to both cultural maintenance and change. Cultural patterns are affected in proportion to the spread in the use of these forms.” (1990)
This excerpt really caught my eye because even though Jones is talking about technology, this could be applied to other ideas such as fashion, food, and art. Culture itself includes all of these ideas and more. I believe that in general as time goes on, everything evolves into better counterparts of its original self. Also in time as these products develop and change they gain more users. The original and new users criticism intertwine to help create better versions of the product. The development of all products helps to maintain and change the culture that we live in. When looking back at the past, everything, not only technology, has come such a long way. Technology however has developed the most, we are now surrounded by technology in our everyday lives whereas in the past technology was hard to come by.
You mentioned that technological advancement is similar to advancements in other cultural aspects like fashion, food, and art. I would argue, however, that the evolution of technology is entirely different than the evolution of fashion, for example. Fashion is very cyclical. The idea of vintage or retro, while the actual style changes constantly, the interest or appeal of the past is prevalent. With technology, that rarely happens. With the exception of vinyl records and classic video game consoles, the idea of vintage or retro in the tech world is not appealing. Technology is a forward looking genre.
I’ll challenge another point you made, saying that tech surrounds our everyday lives, but in the past it was hard to come by. “Technology” has been around since humans first discovered fire. Spears, gun powder, the telegraph… all technologies of their times. Computers/micro processors, however, are very much a modern luxury.