FRAGMENTS OF MY LIFE

Technology is a general term for the processes by which human beings develop tools and machines to increase their control and understanding of the material environment. It implies a thinking process which deals with the casual relationship with the material world with the employment of the experimental methodology those results in empirical demonstrations that can be verified by repetition (scientific methods). The word technology has a broad history that existed from the existence of mankind and certain modifications have been made in its meaning from time to time. It can also be said that it moves with the evolution of early humans from the period of simple tools( that are mostly made from flaked stones for chopping and scraping) to the modern sophisticated large scaled networks that has influence the present life to a great extend.
All the external factors affecting an organism is called the environment. The earth is the habitant of the entire living organism living together as an entity. There is a close relationship between all the individual components of the earth that may be biotic factors, different living organisms, and the abiotic factors (also called non living factors) such as wind, rainfall, temperature, ocean current etc. Together they form an ecosystem within which the whole lifecycle moves.
The inter-relation and the interaction between the human beings is called society. The number of people living in a place having a same shelter makes a family and these certain group of families living and interacting together for their day to day life forms a society. As we see the society is the group of different people living together making a community and working interdependently to carryout their day to day life.

As we go through the technology, environment and society we find there is a very close relationship among these three. The living beings which are closely concerned with these three terms, technology, environment and society, are humans. It is the humans who are responsible for the development of the technology. The progressive ideas and innovations of the human beings presented forward for the benefit of themselves and society (which also their own consequences) gives rise to the technological break through. These ideas and innovations of individuals directly concern with the society usually transforming the traditional cultural systems which may be either constructive or destructive. And as there is a change in the living of the mankind, it directly or indirectly affects the environment causing a change in the ecological cycle. Most of the technological developments are applied for the benefit of mankind. It raises the living standards and helps in the smooth functioning of a society. The development of new ideas eases the works that were felt difficult before the inventions and as a result there is impact on the environment. The application of technology which helps for the group of people living in a society may or may not help the other factors of environment. This is the universal theory that the development or the advantage of one group definitely has some negative impacts on the other though the magnitude of its effect may be small. In the similar fashion, the evolution of technological development is also influenced by the nature of environment. It is a well known fact that no one can ever go against the environment. Environment is the driving factor that causes most of the modification on the lifestyle of people living in a society. It is the environment that determines the types of culture and commence of certain activities of the community. As per in case of Nepal the people of Terai rarely wear woolen clothes or thick jackets as the temperature is mostly hot there. Not only is the society, the technological boom in different places is also governed by the type of environment at those places. The technological development occurs by concerning with the environment. For example as in case of this modern world where we have scarcity of land, people are more concerned with the ideas of high production in small area or laboratory growth of agricultural products. Most of the time people are willing to take the challenges and beat the environment. The environmental condition available determines the way of thinking of the people.
The technological development has touched almost all the field of human life. Each and every person’s day to day life come encounter with the instruments invented through the technological development. No one can disagree with the fact that in present world life without these developed items cant imagined. From the very simple tools to the large-scaled networks human being has always felt their necessity and they lives have always been dependent on them. We can hardly imagine how life was when people don't know how to make fire. Their life was changed from hardship to easiness when they started making variety of tools like scrapers, knives, and other instruments of stone, bone, and other materials. It helped them find food for themselves. They had also begun to use tools to make clothing and build shelters for protection from inclement weather. From the obvious benefit of heat and light, people started using fire for cooking grains in the pot. Early people were dependent on the meat which was obtained from killing animal but the next technological development helped them find how they can survive by eating plants. They knew the idea of using animals for working with growing of crops so they saved their energy. By the time of Bronze Age, human beings have done a number of technological developments like development of bow and arrow, animal-oil lamps, and bone needles for making containers and clothing and shifted their lives from hunting and herbing societies to the more settled practice of agriculture. And with this shifting people didn’t have to depend on meat only anymore. They didn’t have to go for hunting anymore because they could grow the crops they liked and life was easier as it prevented people from staying hungry when they didn’t catch any prey. People started living in a group forming a community and then they started constructed stone buildings so they didn’t have to stay at cave anymore. They stayed protected at their homes. Later on human civilization took place near the big rivers like Nile River. They started using the water of the river for the irrigation purposes so they can use the water during the dry seasons. Several innovative thoughts were implemented and invention of wheels has made it easy for quick transportation. The construction of aqueducts, roads pavements during the Roman age can’t be neglected when it comes to the technological advancement. People started involving in business, known the values of precious metals and process of extracting them. The world was changing and the number of people was growing day by day. For the safe and planned habitant, cities were created. To fulfill the growing demands of growing people industrial development was introduced. With the advancement of technological development people started focusing on sustainable development. They knew the unplanned development can hamper the environment and hence they started Environmental Impact Assessment. Coming to the modern age, people don’t have to lift a finger. Everything can be done by machines. Computers, robots, automatic machines can make the life of people easy and fast. Now people don’t have to remember a single word. Everything can be saved in a chip which is even smaller than our finger tip. With the invention of robots the risk of loss of human lives during working in the dangerous situations has been minimized.
There are a lot of cons of technological development. With the development of early tools human beings have started killing a lot of animals. The construction of human habitants and acquiring land for agriculture adversely affected the wild life as they started destroying the forests. The mining of metal ores degrades the property of soil which can also leads to soil erosion resulting the slip or failure of soil. The main issue of technological development is the growth of population. The newly invented medicines are effective and can prolong the lives of people and decrease the mortality rates. This increases the number of people living on the earth. They have to live on the limited resources and hence they start exploiting the natural resources. Water pollution, soil erosion, wild life extinction, global warming, climatic change, ozone layer depletion, air pollution are some of the problems born due to the skyrocketing growth of population. The more the people the more they affect the environment. With the advancement in technological development the rise of military system for the defense purposes came into existence. In the name of protecting country people started making weapons, arms, bomb etc and in the name of power they started taking over the weaker ones. This created violence and war within the countries and result is 1st and 2nd world wars. These war left people with nothing but destruction and deaths. The means of transportation system helped in fast movement but threatened the lives of people which can be clearly understood by the daily news of road mishap. The modern luxurious life has made people dependent. People can hardly deny their dependence on the new inventions. They are more and more habitual with the technology. Everything they need is available and this has caused laziness in humans. Now we can’t live without the facility we are using. All the works are done by the machines which gave less exercise to humans.
Above all there are both pros and cons of technological development. What’s important for present world is we must seek for the sustainable development and find the best possible way to affect the environment least so that the development would last longer.


(refence from Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference Library 2005)