How technologies define human culture?

Technology is a defining feature of human cultures when the ideas as well as tools that start on human mind. Technology and human culture are the two sides of a coin; like a coin, without one side it was not develop. So, technology and human culture are continually transmitted. All technologies evolve in a particular cultural context as the result of shifting needs or encounter and respond to new experiences and ideas. All human society has its own distinct culture and a cultural system has their own requirements, which is shaped by human and natural forces. In other words, ‘human culture is a patterned behavior which a social group forms to understand, use and survive in their environment’. On the other hand, technology helps to takes change in the environment in order to make it friendly with necessary and unavoidable human needs, which helps to survive easily in human cultures. Due to the distinct cultural features technologies are used by humans and their effects as well as new findings led people to the technological and cultural advancements in human history.

To fulfill the desire of human to live luxurious life, slowly or gradually technology or technological invention and innovation develops from the era of A Stone Age to Nuclear Age. So, technology influenced human culture just as same as culture has generated advancements in technology. It is a complex relationship between technology and culture that forms a figurative circle of influence. While it is difficult to explain all of the examples of how technology has influenced culture and vice versa. By reviewing the revolution that technology developed has changed cultures from simple to complex. Technology throughout history has enabled or changed the human cultures positively but negatively too. So, new and new technologies have been come into practice. And, all those technologies are defining human cultural experience.

Use of technology defines human culture. During Stone Age, people used stone as a hunting tools or means to protecting tools from the attack of other creatures. It means human societies were dependent on stone tools that enabled them to sustain by exploiting their environments more efficiently. No matter how difficulties to make a complete stone tool as how it needs. During such practices, new findings came to be known; fire could be produce while striking the one stone with another. That’s new findings make dramatic changes in the lives of early human and its makes people more curious. Further, ‘fire followed human groups to conquer new environments and probably encouraged the development of social networks and advances in communication through the sharing of food and shelter’. In this way, they kept on experiencing new practices and contentiousness new findings was communicated gradually from one generation to another rapidly.

Although early human societies had much practices to used stone tools for hunting and gathering purposes, they were not much familiar with collecting and saving of food at that time. Therefore, they began agricultural practices with the help the plant domestication of plants and animals to make them more productive. Here, ‘Agricultural change is only the way in which increasingly populated societies adapted their cultural lifestyles to the changing landscapes’. And, this is the culture defined by technology. At first, the agricultural life was more difficult and labor intensive than hunting and gathering but agricultural societies could support larger or more complex societies than hunter-gatherer societies. Agriculture allowed massive population growth so, they start pinpointed the plant domesticates or agricultural crops, such as; cereal grains, with their hard-shelled seeds. And, also they began to domesticate the root crops: potato, yams and manioc in America, Africa and Asia.

Domestication of grains and others plants depended on the use of the hoe and the digging stick or farming tools. So, they introduce wood plow for digging soil and slowly it was changing with iron plowshares around third century in China. But after 800 CE the plow was combined with other innovations. Gradually starting the application of oxen or horsepower to the plowing the field. In this way, technological changes in agriculture would benefit greatly. This pattern and culture of growing foods gradually or human societies introduced with local to global food sources just because of technology.

The second major area of human civilization was The Age of Metals which have devastating impacts on the environment with maximum consumption of metals. ‘The impacts of the increasingly complex material culture was visible even in the earliest communities: the cutting down trees for firewood contributed to the early evidence of deforestation that was continue until today.’ In The Age of Metals technologies were used to produce the tools that had a great effect on agriculture, commerce and war extremely. Metals like ‘iron, being a harder, stronger metal able to create more durable and useful tools’. A new culture was formed by use of metallurgy in Africa and America, and use of metallurgy in Eurasia and gives a kind of social and political distinction, and the symbolic expression of power. Its means having larger mine of copper, silver, gold and iron etc. was the symbol of richness and poorness. So, the concept of social stratification is slowly rise up in this area. Although metallurgy was practiced all over the world, the impact on the environment was visible.

The relationship between human society and the environment is fundamental to survival and role of environment and technology were intertwined and opportunities to the human experience. But development of technology had great impact on ecology. World's ecological crisis lies on development of technology. Irons and steels are used for both technical and spiritual forces. The fuel consumption of major African metallurgical centers created serious problems of deforestation. The environmental costs were high because of the dense wood required to produce consistently high temperature inside the smelting furnaces. When irons are adopted to use in weapons, the development of technology played significant roles on warfare. And, when the production of iron combined with a Chinese invention; gunpowder, the world take dramatic shift speedily.  

Yes, we all experience that; technology is not always

benevolent, sometimes; it can be equally violent, too. Technology played a key role in expanding empires. When nuclear weapons and different types of modern weapons cause World War and the effect of that war still can be observed in Japan. The earlier Vietnam War included level of bombing that defoliated the tropical forest. Industrialized countries, have lower birth rates, they are responsible for the largest share of resources used, waste created, damaged ozone layer, acidification and global warming. These are the most deadly disasters in our world history. So, the technology did no good sometimes, however, it established a culture, patterned but unstable human behaviors.

Steam power was the invention of the next milestone in the field of technological development. When a practical steam locomotive was developed by George Stephenson in England, succeed to the expansion of global market and shortly thereafter railway construction proceeded rapidly. It came to symbolize the global reach of the industrial revolution.  Some other scientific invention of technologies such as electronic machines brought a significant change in human life by replacing human labors slowly. Now days, people are seen using machinery home appliances such as electric heater, refrigerator, TV and mobile etc. to make their life luxurious and practicing as their culture. So, new technology gives a change in the human culture but human are practice it as their culture.   In this way humans are inventing technology but, technology has intensely shaped and defined human culture.

Though, from the beginning of human history, early human civilization of Stone Age to the current Nuclear Age, technology is defining features of culture and intertwined in their impact on the landscape. ‘Technological innovations have had a profound impact on the consumption of resources’. Technology shaped, molded and patterned the way of lives of people. Since the hunting gathering era of early Stone Age to the Nuclear Age, we created a big history where technology defining the human culture. Invention of fire, agricultural revolution, use of metallurgy, industrial revolutions, all brought changes in culture and redefined it constantly. Therefore, throughout the human’s history, humans have comes with various cultural shapes.