Winner or Loser, You Make the Choice

Winners and losers of technology: Making the Distinction

            With each technological advancement made, we all become a little bit smarter. It’s a must for anyone growing up in the 21^st century. While you have those to soak up every new thing under the sun, you also have those that turn a deaf ear to any mention of something doing more than calling and showing what’s on the news at 5:00. This would be the difference between a winner and a loser. One is easily receptacle because it is right to know all techno lingo, while to the other, computers and cell phones are overcoming the world. Its is all a matter of their viewpoint and how much they know that decide into which category they should go.

When making the classification between the winners and the losers, it is very important to pay attention to the characteristics. First and foremost, the winners are typically the people born into or after the rise of the technological age. These people can be noted as people who learned to use emails a few years after learning how to formulate sentences. For these people, technology is second hand knowledge; for these people, they hold the title of digital natives. As said by Marc Prensky (2001), digital natives are “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet” (p. 1). This relates the people winning the technological race because it is second nature. They do not have to think about it, it comes naturally.

Another view of winners could be the literal sense of actually winning and that is prominent in business. Companies compete constantly in order to stay relevant and make their number. Noted by Hess, Calio, and Frohlich (2014), businesses such as Samsung, Apple, and Microsoft are retail champions, as they find themselves locked at the top of the technology division (p. 1). These are the companies that expand their areas of concentration and dominate many different markets at once. Each of the top three companies listed above all service more than two fields outside their known niche.

Looking at the other side of the spectrum, we focus on losers. Because technology is constantly advancing, they would be classified as those who cant keep up with the advancements, those born before the peak, and those who are not able to keep up in terms of competition. From the readings, Prensky would label those after the advancements digital immigrants. Prensky (20012) defined them as:

Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology… (p. 1)

This definition is palpable for the fact that it can relate to your older family member. Fro example, a grandmother is not going to be a go-to computer girl like her granddaughter, but she will understand that her granddaughter does have access to many things on the computer. There will be a divide in terms of what they both know as normal. 

            Aside from the label of being a digital immigrant, one could also be unaware of the world of technology due to more serious circumstances. Pew Research Center (2012) shows that there is a noticeable difference of the usage of internet between those educated past high school and those not (p. 5). It gives a glimpse into the struggle of actually staying adept in the digital sector of the world when your situation places a limit on you.

            Lastly, we can look at those “losers” of the technological race in terms of profit. The same way there are thriving businesses; there are also those that struggle to keep their name afloat. Companies such as Blackberry, Dell, and even HTC are examples. Pointed out by Sean Gallagher (2013), “The company has had to work to shake off the stink of bad computers past…And Dell's failure in the smartphone business has only hastened its decline in the mobile market against Android and Apple devices” (p.1). The electronically competition is very high and for those who cant seem to meet the advancements seem to fall behind.

In conclusion, pointing out the winners and the losers of technology can be said to be biased. While there is research to back up most points, labeling someone a loser is pretty much up to the person doing the labeling. While they can hold the title of being a loser, it is also possible for the winner to become a loser as advances continue to be made. Within the year of 2040, the advances of today will be child’s play compared to what will come. Aside from the business aspect where the numbers speak for themselves, the winners and losers are all based on paradigms.