Impact of Technology on Society & Culture
by Zubayda R
1. Description of My culture & Society
1.1. My name is Zubaida Reheman. I am an international student and I have been here for 2 years. Speaking of my background, I am an Uyghur. I know most of u guys are never heard this nation (maybe all of you). Uyghur is a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia, and we believe in Islam.
2. An example of the SPECIFIC technology, website, or software app and incident that you chose.
2.1. I am going to focus on the business part of the discussion and how it has impacted me and my society. Today I want to talk about a software app that is popular in my society called Wechat. Wechat is a mobile text and voice messaging communication service, you can see that as a combination of Whatsapp and Facebook. Wechat provides text messaging, hold to talk voice messaging, one to many messaging, video conferencing, video games, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing. People can share their recent moments to their friends on Wechat.
3. How this is related to your culture or society.
3.1. According to the class module, Business Gets Social " Social media has become a mainstay for all things business and personal. Businesses are using it for marketing and customer engagement; consumers use it for networking, entertainment, and more. But now both groups are starting to use the platform for customer support." After reading the article, I noticed that technology has become a main part of business. So now the question is how this (Wechat) is related to my culture or society. Several years ago, people in my society used to do their online business on Business website, like eBay, but there is some problem with opening an online business on this kind of famous website because they need to pay for that website. For example: to open the basic store on eBay you have to pay $15-$19 per month; For premium store it is $49-$59 per month; For anchor store is $179-$199 per month. So some people think this is not really efficient. Now things are getting better in my society. Technology is helping small business improve their communication, such as Wechat. Now people are using Wechat instead of another website because on Wechat they don't need to pay for a store, all they need to do is take a picture of their product and put it on their moment. This is really convenient for most of the people. For example, my mom is working in the nursing house, she has to work 8 hours every day, so she doesn't have any other spare time to do other jobs. However, after Wechat has become popular, my mom's started her online business. It doesn't take a long time. All she needs to have is her phone, App, and Wifi. Not only my mom, also most of my friends are doing online business through Wechat. As mention on the module " People interact with brands more often on Facebook compared to other platforms. They seek out news and discounts and show their support." Wechat has also become one of the popular App like Facebook in my society.
4. Why you chose this particular example instead of all the others out there.
4.1. There are a couple of reasons why I chose this App instead of all the others out there.
4.1.1. First of all, this is most popular App in my society. Not only adult, also elder people likes to play it.
4.1.2. Second, this App is really convenient for people like me who live far away from their families. You can do video chat with your families and friends whenever you want. Also, you can send voice message instead of texting.
4.1.3. Finally, as I mention, this App has changed a way of small business and made it possible for everyone. Those are also a reasons why this is relevant and important to me.