We are living in 21st century. In this era of Information technology every aspect of human life has some kind of connection to information technology. In 19th century man wanted to go to the outer space of the earth but in 21st century every man is seemed to be a prisoner in cyberspace.
Information technology is not a stream of knowledge or technical process that can be point out and defined easily. It can be defined hardly as a combination of computer and communications technologies that helps produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and/or disseminate information. Sri Lanka is also heading towards to the era of information technology. Although Sri Lanka is a developing county which has not very good rate of computer literacy; the contribution of Sri Lankan’s in cyberspace is fascinating.
Social solidarity is synonymous with social cohesion or social integration. And social solidarity refers to “the integration and degree or type of integration, manifest by a society or group”. (Collins Dictionary of Sociology; Page - 621).From society to society the definition for the social solidarity can be changed. In simple societies social solidarity means kinship and shared values. In more complex societies it base on various theories.
Sri Lanka is a country which has a very good social structure from the ancient time. Sri Lankan people are well known as a set of people who has very good integration. Hence the Sri Lankan society has very good social solidarity.
But with this impact of Information Technology the beat of Sri Lankan society had was bit changed in past few years. Information technology has impacted on Sri Lankan society’s social solidarity in both good and bad ways.
The main fact of information technology that effects on every society in the world is Internet. Internet is a huge collection of networks that has linked with everything which man interacts with. It has made both good and bad effects on the social solidarity of Sri Lankan society.
The latest tendency of internet is social networking through online. There are so many social networks available in cyberspace such as Face book, Hi5, Friendster, MySpace…etc. Lot of Sri Lankans use these social networking web sites. As an example Face book has the 3rd rank of Sri Lanka’s most visited website list (source: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/LK). Through this kind of web sites, users can interact with his friends, relations and with many groups easily. This can effort to the strength of the social solidarity but at the same time this will make social ties online things rather than things that the person feels as real things.
Blogging is also a good concept of sharing ideas and making good conversations among people. These web services help people to find out people who match his/her ideas and make good conversations.
And using mailing functions users can spread their ideas and requests all around the world in seconds. So the person can interact with people around the world just sitting on a chair.
In contemporary Sri Lanka the Television is also a well known thing in Information Technology. Some television programs do a great service to by helping to buildup and maintain a good social solidarity in the society.
Not only in good ways but also in bad ways the Information Technology affect the social solidarity.
Although the internet has become a vast advantage to the mankind it makes so many bad impacts towards the social solidarity. As an Asian country Sri Lanka still maintain their values inside the social solidarity. In the internet we can find out so many bad websites and other stuffs. These things can lead the social solidarity to ruin.
Teenagers who have computers at home run to the home as soon as he gets rid of school or tusion class and turn on the computer. In this way he/she is losing time of playing and making good connections with friends. And E-mail chains that we receive several a day can also contain misleading information and give a bad picture about the society and people. If a child grows up with holding his fingers on a key board most of the time he is building his ideals through things he see in the screen. If he sees a man or a woman in a pornography movie somehow those scenes may affect his ideals. This can make a man isolated.
Although the social networks like Face Book, MySpace….etc create relationships in the society. This can lead someone to an unsuitable relationship. And in Sri Lanka a computer user can not interact with the majority of the country through computer. He gets to know only about computer using crowds’ attitudes, ideas and visions. Through that a good social solidarity does not build up.
And in contemporary Sri Lanka it seems to be that ……..People are getting addicted to the television and tele dramas. When a person get use to live with these things he/she buildup a world around them for themselves. When a mother of a family gets addicted to this we can see clearly how social solidarity gets affected by the Information technology. If mother get use to such things the communication in the family get stop. This can lead the social solidarity to a distraction.
By considering all above mentioned facts we could come to the conclusion that Information Technology brings benefits to the social solidarity as well as it harms it. As a country with a great reputation for its cultural and sociological values we should be able to maintain those values. As the members of this society it’s our responsibility to maintain the social solidarity at a higher level by working with Information Technology.
Sources:
- Wikipeadia
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