Impact of New Technology on Lifestyle and Health Essay

As a start I would like to give a short and simpleton definition of the innovation engineering science. applied science forget, in this lawsuit and this paper, refer to any personal object, product, environment, or symbol that has been created by human existences. A nonher frequently aim concept with the same meaning is artifact (Simon, 1969). engineering science has had a enormous impact upon the living cultivates of people all over the world. Technology has assistanted us to answer legion(predicate) tasks safer, faster, and with higher precision than would be achievable without its help. Technology has as swell made us stronger, helped us to de stop faster, and made it achievable for us to work out tasks that otherwise would be impracticable to finish.With the help of engine room we tail finish many tasks that argon insidious for people to run, like running(a) in a hostile physical environment, for instance in a contaminated or radioactive environment . Technology has helped us to perform boring manual tasks day and night, every day in the week, pull down without a coffee brake.Technology has made it possible for us to travel all over the world and r separately clean destinations, quicker than ever. before long we might even travel to other planets in our Solar transcription. The art of shapes, computers and other technological artefacts has improved our psychogenic abilities too. Technology laughingstock bring about us smart (Norman, 1993) by increasing our abilities to remember intermit, by storing entropy in different formats, and support our reasoning activities.Thanks to computers we bunghole perform complex calculations quickly, simulate processes of different variety, create art and music, and so on. Technology has also helped us to pick up information that earlier was impossible to pick up. Microscopes and telescopes, only to mention a few technological blinds, gift made it possible for us to look into wor lds that we otherwise would non demand any access to. brand- young intelligent hearing aids train helped people with hearing deficits to pick up auditory information better and improved the possibilities to bring with other people.Technology bum improve our abilities to hold in vehicles of different kind, for instance to improve the ability to steer, brake and vex gears in the car. New engineering science has been used to create systems that can help turn of events drivers to visit new destinations, or start out the quickest route to known destinations. New technology has also been developed for helping drivers to avoid collisions and other dangerous speckles. Technology has made it possible to adapt cars to drivers with functional handicap so that they can drive (nearly?) as safely as drivers without these problems.Technology can help mariners to navigate ships across the Atlantic with high precision, to assist pilots in their task of flying to selected destinations, a void collisions in the air, obtain the aircraft, and so on. surgical process industries, manufacturing industries, energy producing industries can today be controlled with the help of new march on technology. Technology has had an impact on the expressive style we live, work, enjoy ourselves, and communicate with each other.Thanks to improved transportation systems we can now live at a quad from our functional place, and commute to our job. Some of us can work from home thanks to the computer and the ability to send digital messages to different destinations. Thanks to the World Wide Web we can communicate with people at very distant places and arrange virtual meetings. We also earn for new ways of entertaining ourselves.Technology in the health sector has made important contri merelyions to the treatment of diseases and with the help of advanced technology it is now possible to save lives in a way that was not possible only a few decades ago. In her key note, professor Axe lsson has shown how technology can be used in health c be. presently it may be possible to replace missing limbs with artifacts that can perform the tasks the missing limb should gull performed.Changes in lifestyle?I debate we can identify some important changes in our lifestyles that be, at least(prenominal) partly, caused by the technological development. With the focus on human work I believe we can identify the next, and many more than changes.A release from physical to mental workloadOne important trend in our works life is a shift from physically demanding tasks to mentally demanding tasks. tender-hearted work has for a long time been more or slight dominated by tasks that were physically demanding. Some of these tasks are still with us, but in many cases new technology can help us to perform them with less physical effort. A farmer, say 150 geezerhood ago, performed many manual tasks. Today there exist machines that can help the farmer to perform many of the tas ks. A miner used to perform many heavy manual tasks when my father was working as a miner. Today trucks are doing the job, quicker and faster.Instead of execute the physically demanding tasks an floozy of a machine has to control the machine and supervise its mental process, indicating a shift to a mentally demanding task. A task is mentally demanding if it imposes a workload on our abilities to search for and pick up relevant information, store information, use information to make decisions, solve problems, develop action plans and supervise the performance of action plans. Many working tasks today submit the character of being more mentally demanding than physically demanding.A shift towards supervising processesThe peg down for workers has, in many cases, changed from being in direct contact with the working task to using some kind of technological device to perform the task. This has quite often forgeted in a new role for the worker. The new role is more of a supervisor of a process. Examples may be shew among pilots who are interacting with a computer, the flight management system, which is performing part of the flying task. Another employment can be found among workers in highly automated industrial processes, where an automated system is controlling a large part of the process.Increased complexnessThe introduction of computers has increased the complexity of many tasks. The amount of information we are forced to process in working life has increased. As a closure is it has become harder to make the way different systems are working. The logic of many systems is hidden in the computer and not possible to inspect promptly. Negative impact of technologyThere are some psychological consequences of the changes that has occurred as a result of new technology. In some cases technology can make us stupid, confused and disoriented. Please let me illustrate this statement by bragging(a) a few examples on how technology can confuse us and make us look stupid.Technology that may make us stupidDoors are equipped with some kind of device to receptive and close them. In some cases it is perfectly obvious how the device whole shebang by looking at it. In other cases it might be confusing. There exist doors where the device to open and close the doors are monovular in shape, but works completely different. A good project should make it obvious how a door should be opened and the dominion of consistency should be used. In some cases it may be highly important to be able to open doors quickly and without involving higher mental processes.Another example of a violation of the principle of consistency is when you have a door with two locks, and to open the door you must(prenominal) get the key in different directions in each lock. Still other example can be receden from the medical sector. A act of studies have shown that errors are made in this sector, and that errors tend to occur when patients are given their medicine. One po ssible explanation to this is that different medicines may be stored in bottles that look very much like each other. An interest question is how the container for different medicines should be physically externalizeed so that it is golden to distinguish different drugs.An example from the automobile industry has to do with the kind between controls and, in this case, windows. A good principle, stemming from Gestalt psychology, is that you should place a control of a certain device close to that device. This is called the proximity principle. In some cases this is not done, and controls for the windows in a car might be located far away from the windows.The fancy of the physical environment is also of interest. When a new living area is created and houses and paths are intentional, it is common to find that people living there are not walking on the paths that have been so nicely designed. Instead they quite often are using the shor examen route across some sensitive area(s). A simple solution here would be to wait and memorise where people are walking, and after that decide the paths should be located. In some hotel rooms you must use most of your brain proponent to figure out how the exhibitor works. The problem in many cases is that the function is hidden, and it is not possible to directly gather up how the shower must be operated.Technology can be used to supervise people Big Brother can see you In some cases technology is used to supervise workers performance at workplaces. This may increase the stress train of the tortuous workers, and in some cases increase their stress level, and make them sick. On example comes from call warmheartednesss. The number of call centres has increased rapidly in Sweden. A common definition of a call centre is a working place where people are engaged in telephone discourse with customers and are doing that with the help of computer support.In a call centre the operators performance can be effectively manage w ith the help of computers. It is possible to measure the number of telephone calls each employee is performing during the working day, and also measure the number of breaks that occur during a working day. A psychological effect of this registration is, sometimes, an increased stress level among the workers. Big Brother can see youTechnology can be used to supervise traffic streams, control traffic streams, and identify rush along drivers. Cameras on the road side are being more and more common in Sweden. Some drivers dont like being supervised by Big Brother and one solution seems to be the destruction of cameras.Technology can also be used to stop drunken drivers from using their car. Before the car can be started the driver must exhale (breathe) into a measuring device. If the device detects alcohol in the air then(prenominal) the car will not be possible to start. Some drivers which have been found guilty of driving when intoxicated by alcohol have, as a part of their treatme nt, accepted to install this kind of device in their car. A follow up study has shown that many of these convicted drivers have stopped using this device.Technology can give an invitation to gracious ErrorBesides making us feel stupid, improper design of technology can cause incidents, accidents, and in the worst case bug out people. Please let me illustrate this by using some well known accidents as examples.Three Mile Island, regular army. This accident happened in the regular army 1971. A problem occurred in the Nuclear fountain Plant and the situation gradually developed into something problematic. One, out of many, aspects of this accident is that the alarm systems in the Power Plant were activated, and very soon a large number of alarms and admonitions were sounding.This credibly increased the stress level of the operators who were trying to project the problem and what to do with it. A high level of stress is not an optimal condition for solving a complex problem. One problem here was that rather of helping the operators to solve the problem the alarm systems made the situation worse.The go under in Gottrra, Sweden. A certain similarity can be found in an accident with a passenger plane in Sweden, 1991. A plane (MD 81) started from Arlanda airport (Stockholm) and soon after the start it lost the power of one engine and shortly thereafter the power of the other engine. The lords plan was to fly the plane without the help of the engines (basic flying) and perform an catch landing on an empty field at a distance from the airport. During the four minutes, from the moment the engines had stopped until the aircraft landed safely (), the plane was shaking and the instrument panel were blinking. Auditory warnings were activated and a female warning voice was talking continuously. The information from the plane to the captain was chaotic and did not offer any useful help to him.In one hearing after the accident the captain stated that on the wish h ear was a warning system that can offer help in situations of this kind. Not a system that distracts and increases the pilots stress level. In Linkping, Sweden, a number of patients were treated with the help of a machine that should purify their blood. A nurse misjudged the information from the machine and by mistake turned the machine off. A number of patients died as a result. The machine was built by some technicians and when it was working correctly a number of indicators (lamps) showed the colour red. commonly red is a colour that is used for warnings of different kind.There are also a number of accidents that have occurred as a result of automation. mechanisation of some tasks may solve some problems, but can also create new possibilities for errors (Bainbridge, 1987). It has been found that people may have an over trust in automation and believe that an automated system takes care of more that it actually can take care of. Automation can also have the effect that an operato r becomes less involved in the control of a system and has a problem to take the control back when so needed. What can we do to avoid the nix sides of technology?In the cases where technology is used to supervise people and this is not totally accepted by people this may be regarded as a political question and should be treated as such. This case will not be discussed further in this paper.In cases where the design of technology has caused problems it is possible to provide some guidelines. Improper design of technology is common when technology is designed without consideration of the users needs, abilities and limitations. The following advices can be givenStart the development process of new technology by investigating the needs of the mean users Perform a task analysis (see for instance Kirwan and Ainsworth, 1993) and try to understand what the users need are in order to perform the task efficiently and safely. Involve the intended users early in the design process Remember th at they have a lot of valuable knowledge concerning the task and how it may be performed. complaisance individual differences There are sometimes large individual variations among users of a technological device and the design should be flexible enough to take care of this variation.Make it possible for users to understand the technical device. If users can understand the way a technical device works (if I drive this button, then that will happen) the risk for so called human error will most likely decrease.Use the scientific method test and test again, until you have eliminated the worst problems. The empirical testing of a technical device should have a high priority. Design for human error peck will, in the long run, get tired, distracted or anything else and make an error. This is sometimes called Murphys law if anything can go wrong then it will, sooner or posterior. humankind beings are not like machines and we have to design with that in mind. A technical device should be designed to make it possible to escape the error that sooner or later will be made.Provide feedback (this happened) and feedforward (that will happen). Feedback and feedforward from a technical device should be clear and easy to understand. This will give the user a possibility to understand the system.If possible introduce an undo function As mentioned earlier people will make errors and this is an error correcting possibility. Use a system perspective Any kind of technological equipment will be used in a certain context. Analyse the context and see whether the new artefact can successfully be mixed into the context. These are general rules to follow, and by following them I strongly believe that we can influence the design of technology in such a way that our lifestyles and health will be improved.ReferencesBainbridge, L. (1987). Ironies of Automation. In J. Rasmussen, K. Duncan and J. Leplat (Eds.) New Technology and Human Error, John Wiley & Sons Ltd Kirwan, B., and Ainswort h, L.K. (Eds.) (1993). A guide to task analysis. Taylor & Francis Norman, D.A. (1993). Things that make us smart. PERSEUS BOOKS, USA Reason, J. (1990). Human error. Cambridge university press, USA Simon, H. (1969). The Science of the Artificial. The M.I.T. PRESS