Culture
This is where you will find all the pages tagged Culture.
The rise of technology addiction
The seemingly exponential growth of portable technology has sparked fears that people are becoming addicted or swamped by gadgets and their uses.One major consequence of this phenomenon is that the line between work and private life is much more blurred, now that e-mail and phones provide a 24-hour link between employers and staff.
Experts believe that even the decision-making process of the average person can be adversely affected.
The rise of technology addiction
iWorld-Why the iPod personalizes everything
Steven Levy argues that the ability to check out of the public sphere is one of the many virtues of Steve Jobs' minuscule machine. As the sociologist Rey Chow said of the iPod's predecessor, the Sony Walkman: "This is the freedom to be deaf to the loudspeakers of history. The Walkman allows me...to be a missing part of history."There are parts of history that nearly everyone would be happy to miss out on. In New York's mayoral campaign of 2005, Levy relates, one candidate complained how hard it was to hijack peaceful pedestrians on their way to work when they have those white earbuds plugged in. "We have to come up with something to jam the iPods," he whined. But that's the beauty of the iPod. There's no jamming it. It's a self-contained unit, not reliant on a radio signal or even on the output of a record company.
The age of technological revolution is 100 years dead
Dazzled by neophiliacs, we have lost the power of scepticism - the new is grotesquely oversold, the tried and tested neglected.I rise each morning, shave with soap and razor, don clothes of cotton and wool, read a paper, drink a coffee heated by gas or electricity and go to work with the aid of petrol and an internal combustion engine. At a centrally heated office I type on a Qwerty keyboard; I might later visit a pub or theatre. Most people I know do likewise.
Not one of these activities has altered qualitatively over the past century, while in the previous hundred years they altered beyond recognition. We do not live in the age of technological revolution. We live in the age of technological stasis, but do not realise it. We watch the future and have stopped watching the present
The age of technological revolution is 100 years dead | Columnists | Guardian Unlimited
La Dolce Vita, Internet Style
Colletta di Castelbianco is a 13th-century Italian village that was on the verge of extinction -- until an architect gave it a new design and Internet connectivity gave it a new lease on life. The story of how it became a haven for mobile professionals.
Mobile mania reigns
ABOUT two billion people worldwide are now hooked on to a mobile phone, according to the United Nations, and the technology is taking over.Personal digital technology was expanding at a revolutionary pace and could have a pervasive impact on people's lives, the UN's telecommunications agency said.
Internet and mobile communications were now the prime leisure time medium for under-55s, outstripping television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and cinema, according to the International Telecommunications Union.
The growth in the use of devices that link up to global digital networks is far outstripping any other communications medium in history, according to the ITU's Internet Report 2006: Digital.Life.
"We're in the midst of a digital revolution," one of the authors, Lara Srivastava, said from Geneva.
Mobile mania reigns | Herald Sun
My Bag Is Killing Me
In the last few years, bags have become ever more voluminous, and as women have fallen sway to their chunky charms, they have filled them up with necessities. These days many women are as burdened as mail carriers.As a result, reports of shoulder soreness and stiff necks are on the rise and doctors, massage therapists and chiropractors are tailoring treatments for the bag-obsessed.
“In the last year or so, I’ve been seeing the same kinds of issues with adult women that I’m used to seeing with kids who carry heavy backpacks on one shoulder,” said Karen Erickson, a chiropractor who has a private practice on the Upper West Side, and also serves as a spokeswoman for the American Chiropractic Association. “They’re experiencing neck pain — not just while they’re carrying their purses, but all the time. A lot of women even get bad headaches.”
“Lately, when a patient comes in complaining of these symptoms, I walk over and pick up her purse,” she added. “Without fail, it weighs a ton.”
Ouch! My Bag Is Killing Me - New York Times
Blogomania grips Asia
A survey of 25,000 MSN portal visitors across seven Asian markets - Hong Kong, India, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand - found that almost half of those online in Asia have a blog, and 40 percent of these bloggers are blogging for more than three hours a week.Perhaps not surprisingly blogging is primarily a pastime of the young: only nine percent of those surveyed were over 34 and 56 percent were under 25. However, perhaps surprisingly, blogging is not predominantly a male pastime: overall 55 percent of respondent bloggers were female, but in India blogging is overwhelmingly a male domain.
According to Microsoft's MSN and Windows Live Online Services Business, which conducted the survey. "The research showed that blogging is a social phenomenon with Asians primarily blogging as a means to maintain and build their social connections and to express themselves. [However] blogging as a corporate or business tool still appears to be nascent in most markets, with little interest from consumers in blogs from business or political leaders.
"The exceptions are online powerhouse Korea where blogging has permeated all aspects of life and India where a culture of self-improvement is seeing business related blogs become very popular."
According to the report sharing a diary or photo album with loved ones was the most often cited reason for starting a blog (53 percent). "User created content and community based online services are really propelling the Internet in Asia right now," said Alex Stewart, Director of Microsoft's Online Services Business, Asia Pacific. "Today, instead of sending out mass emails or holiday letters, people are using their blogs to express themselves".
iTWire - Blogomania grips Asia, says Microsoft
The cell phone as artistic platform
If you think of the mobile business - in terms of content most of it is - well - commercial, of course. But as with any business there is always a niche that finds its way and manages to avoid using it as a mere platform for marketing and selling content. One thing you might know for example is that in Japan you can easily watch NHK (national TV) on your mobile.
PingMag - Mobile Flash Art: cell phone as artistic platform
The device formerly known as the cell phone
Ipods are just repurposed computers and mobilephones are gradually becoming the same. In Asia you see mobiles being utilized for a variety of uses beyond traditional voice calls and text messaging. North America with it's locked/closed cellular market has always lagged behind but is now getting set to unleash a flood of innovative mobile gadgets and services which will help transform our understanding of just what is a mobile phone.
Some notes:
Park Hyun-A is someone you might want to watch. A 21-year-old student at Korea University in Seoul, she’d like to be a marketing executive for a telecom or fashion company someday and enjoys playing matchmaker for friends looking for the perfect mate.But what’s really intriguing is the way Park uses her Samsung mobile phone. Each day she waves it over a reader at a turnstile in the train station to pay her fare. Then, during the long ride to school, she flips open the screen and rotates it 90 degrees to watch satellite tv. On the same screen, Park pages through an e-book version of Joachim de Posada’s Don’t Eat the Marshmallow…Yet!: The Secret to Sweet Success in Work and Life. She sends an average of 66 text messages a day, snaps pictures of cute guys and sends them to friends, and plays an online game in which she runs a virtual fruit store.
South Korea and Japan have emerged as oracles of mobility. More than 3 million Koreans regularly use their mobile phones to log on to the giant Cyworld social networking site.
