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Impact of Technology on the Perceptions of Culture Shock

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Mevlana International Journal of Moral and Values Education (MIJMVE)
ISSN: 2148-9076
Vol. 2(2), pp. 21-28, 31 October, 2015
Available online at http://mijmve.mevlana.edu.tr

Impact of Technology on the Perceptions of Culture Shock

İbrahim KURT*
Mevlana University, Educational Faculty, Department of Educational Sciences, Konya,
Turkey.

Hakan GÖK
Mevlana University, Konya, Turkey.

Article History:
Abstract:
Received: Culture shock used to be experienced only in the real life when people travelled to new
18.07.2015 locations and encounter new cultural practices. However, with the advent of modern
Received in revised form: communication technologies, one does not need to travel to get a cultural shock. Media
30.08.2015
brought it to individuals thanks to wide spread use of smart mobile devices and continuous
Accepted:
22.09.2015 Internet connectivity. This paper looks into the evolution of culture shock from early stages
Keywords: of physical travels to twenty first century cyber travel. The paper also analyses the impact
Culture shock, Digital world, of technology on people’s perception of other cultures. It concludes that technology
Technology, Physical increases the frequency of people experiencing culture shock but it also helps decrease the
barriers, Mental barriers magnitude of the shock.

Introduction
If there is one thing which isn’t detachable from society, that would be ‘the culture.’
Culture is considered as one of the most important entities that a society possesses, because it
shapes up the future and contains the societies’ past and presents. Culture varies in many
societies, but in some cases they have a lot of similarities. Culture plays a crucial role in terms
of building communal peace and keeping individuals away from disrespectful behaviour, but
isn’t limited to a small group of people. It is in fact the property of a very wide variety of
individuals, from families to countries. Families may have their own culture, as they become
wider; they make a community that contains culture. In other words, each country have its own
culture. One thing to be considered is that the culture of each society or country can be different
from each other. People who come from a particular culture and go to another may face some
difficulties because of the unfamiliarity toward the new culture (Pedersen, 1994; Gaw, 2000;
Meisel, 2012). This is called ’culture shock.’ The explanations or the understanding process of
culture shock what difficulties one may live during the re-adapting and re-adjusting to one's
own home culture in another cultural environment. As interesting as culture shock may be, it
can be very stressful and can cause a person to be very anxious when the culture is very
awkward to the person’s personal views. Various studies have been conducted to learn how to

*
Correspondence:E-mail: ikurt@mevlana.edu.tr
deal with culture shock (Gullahorn & Gullahorn, 1963; Adler, 1975; Searle & Ward, 1990;
Pedersen, 1994; Gaw, 2000; Meisel, 2012). Most of the time, when speaking about culture
shock, what aware is that differentiation between two or more cultures. However we must keep
in view that we live in a digital age which people are very familiar that becomes a part of the
culture or view. Technology has dramatically improved. Unfortunately, no one can escape from
becoming dependent on it. Now we are living in a world of chaos, the culture should always be
kept fresh in the world of technology.

Even though technology facilitates our lives, it also has a lot of drawbacks. It is
important to look at culture and culture shock from the perspective of digital age. It seems that
the culture and culture shock have new aspects because of technology and its facilities. Today,
it is normal that one's own home cultural features can be seen or lived in front of the television,
in internet or with other technologies by the other culture members. There are used for physical
barriers and borders to cross in order to interact with a different culture. However, today one
does not need to leave the comfort of his own environment to be exposed to alien cultures.
Technology has actually removed the physical barriers and borders between cultures. People
are exposed to different cultures on a daily basis owing to the Television shows and the Internet.
They quickly accept and adapt the different cultural practices. If people understand the cultural
similarities between the societies, re-adapting and re-adjusting will not be hard as it used to be.
Before realising physical barriers, he/she can prepare him or herself, mentally and
psychologically for cultural situations. Problems encountered in other countries can be solved
by cancelling the mental barriers, to be more descriptive and explanatory.

Method

Literature research method is used to identify the cultural terms, historical events, and
understanding the social situation for the different communities. Culture and its terms that were
described above with its reflections to today’s life and society will be discussed from the
perspective of culture and digital age. This article is the general review of different books,
articles and online materials as well as the personal experience and the reflections of the authors.

Culture

Culture is a very broad word to be defined but it can be defined as “a system of shared
ideas; beliefs, knowledge, values, customs, traditions, symbols, behaviours, and artefacts that
belong to a certain society.” (Chen et al., 2010; Zion & Kozleski, 2005; Kurt, 2014). In that
certain society, culture is learned from others during the interacting and passing to other
generations. Most important is that about culture is what keeps us to relate with each other
without misunderstanding because everyone is at the same level of belief and thoughts. Culture
is considered as the food, the music, the clothing, and the holidays that a group of people share.
But it is actually much larger than just those visible traditions. Culture is a combination of
thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviour patterns that are shared by racial,
ethnic, religious, or social groups of people (Zion & Kozleski, 2005:3). Culture is also about
our root (Kalman, 2009). In short, culture can be summarized as the way of living. Specific and
clear examples will make it more understandable. For instance, clothing, religion, festivals,
ceremonies and food are the cultural values and can be found in all societies.

Clothing

Most of our traditional clothing is different in style and meaning, since our roots are
different from each other. For example, the Japanese and the Chinese have a traditional cloth

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called “kimono” which is a robe-type cloth mainly for women. There is also “kimono” for men.
For African people in some regions like Madagascar it changes to ‘malabary.’ Malabary is a
long cloth up to the knees. It depends on how the person wants it but most of the time it is up
to the knees. The colours are optional. When there is a ceremony or a festival, the malabary is
worn by all. Another example is the traditional clothing of Turkish people, composed of loosely
fitted trousers which is called ‘shalvar’ and open fronted coats called ‘kaftan’ or ‘dolman’ and
then wearing jackets or vest called ‘cebken’ or ‘yelek.’ Turks also wear boots to protect the
lower leg and the feet as well as a hat in different style (Condra, 2013; 730). All of these attires
are not just a statement of fashion; they in fact serve certain purposes. For example, the Japanese
Kimono was designed to indicate the wearer’s age and social standing and also dictated by the
seasons (Ming-ju sun, 2007). Turkish traditional clothing also changes by the season. It is also
designed for easy movement (Condra, 2013; 730).
Clothing is important in almost every culture in order to present oneself. It is also the
symbol of one’s country. Nowadays, almost everyone is wearing modern, culture-less garments
like t-shirts and skinny jeans. Even though these types of clothes are used on a daily basis,
traditional clothes are still used on special occasions. This means that traditional clothes are still
having their place in the field of culture. Today, difference in clothing by the help of technology
is virtually non-existent. People globally wear t-shirts, jeans or trousers. Yet, they try to keep
their traditional clothes too. By watching those on television or finding the differences on
Internet about clothes can reduce culture shock before encountering.

Religion

People in communities also share faiths, beliefs and religions as part of their culture.
There are several dozens of beliefs in the different parts of the world. Religion occupies a very
big place on people’s lives, they either believe in God or not. Except a few extreme dictatorships
most people have freedom to choose what to believe. Belief is an essential part of one’s culture
and identity. Most of the time, people get together in one place to worship to whatever deity
they choose to believe and there are a lot of similarities among them. For example, Christians
have churches as a place of worship while Muslims have mosques, Jews have synagogues and
Buddhists have their temples. There are many different religions in the world. Some are well-
known such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. There are definitely a
lot more than these religions, but these are the ones which are easily recognised by everyone.
These religions differ from each other with their symbols, flags, faiths, and type of worship etc.
The point is; religion is part of everyone’s culture and everyone within the same society
is most likely to share the same culture and religion with a few exceptions. Religion is all about
beliefs, faiths and other types of philosophy and thoughts. For this reason, it is also inseparable
from culture. In our digital age, people can easily learn about each other’s religion without
actually travelling and interacting with people of that particular faith.
Learning about other people’s life style, religious symbols, and place of worship is very
easy owing to the modern technology. This, in return, removes mental barriers between people
reducing the impact of culture shock and the level of anxiety. For instance, in Buddhism, they
believe the reincarnation of the dead in the form of rats (Sharma et al., 2013). And they organise
mass feasts for the rats outside Buddhist temples. This would shock almost everyone from
outside the local culture.
In Shia Islam, the devoted followers whip themselves with sharp edged chains and
bleed heavily. This is to re-enact the suffering of the prophet’s grandson Hussain in Karbala
in 680 AD (Akhavi, 1989; Rahman, 2015).

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Festivals and Ceremonies

Beliefs are part of cultures and they have always been there. There are many different
kinds of beliefs which are expressed through ceremonies, festivals and the like.
For example, in Madagascar there is a festival called ‘Famadihana.’ It is a very strange festival.
This is how it works: famadiana means ‘turning the bones of the dead,’ in which the bodies of
the ancestors are exhumed from their burial sites, re-dressed and then moved to the ancestral
tomb where they are buried for the second time. At least one zebu, South East Asian cattle, is
slaughtered during the festival and the horn is used to decorate the tomb of the dead, and the
meat is eaten during the celebration (Albala, 2011; 111). People (not all of them and not
obligatory) drink alcohol or ‘toaka gasy’ which is one of the most powerful alcohol in
Madagascar. Also, rice, beef and beans are eaten during the celebrations. The culture is based
on the belief that the ancestors or ‘razana’ is not just dead and disappeared from life without
doing anything to the living people, the razana still oversee those who are still alive and bless
them, help them or punish them according to one’s situation.
Another example is the Halloween. Halloween is arguably one the most known festivals
in the world. Perhaps owing to the fact that almost everyone around the world watch Hollywood
productions. But, why do they celebrate Halloween? It is also about beliefs. Halloween is fun
even if it is about creepy stuff. People enjoy it a lot, especially the kids. During the Halloween,
houses are decorated to look as if they are haunted, kids play the game called ‘trick or treat,’
and people make a scary face from a large pumpkin which is called ‘jack-o-lanterns.’ One is
curious about the origins of the Halloween. Long time ago, people believed that witches, ghosts
were real. The nature and the sun were their gods and people worshipped them. They believed
that winter was a season for devils. It is the season of death for living things. They thought that
Samhain called the dead to walk the Earth once a year. Druids (Celtic priests) had a ceremony
in the fall. Because they believed that prays would help the sun against to winter. They thought
fire would help to free the sun and frighten away the dead. They wore masks because they
believed it would scare the spirits. And the costume would keep the spirits from recognizing.
The name Halloween actually came from All Saint’s day which is celebrated on the first day of
November. This holy day was called All Hollow’s day or Hallowmas and is celebrated on the
31st of October (Hintz & Hintz, 1996; 11).
The two examples above demonstrate how one’s culture may seem completely
extraordinary for the other. It may be fairly difficult to move into these places and mingle with
the local people without experiencing a culture shock. However, today people get information
easily before traveling or moving into other cultures and they still may experience culture shock
for other situations. One may argue that the magnitude of culture shock is gradually getting
weaker and weaker. This is owing to the fact that people gather online information prior to their
actual journey to those specific locations. Once they get there the practices, superstitions and
ceremonies such as Nepal’s funerals, Indian’s Holi, Brazilian’s Carnivals, and Spanish’s
Matadors are not as shocking as they used to be in our non-technology days. It is clear that the
digital age has made culture shock easier, yet it reduced the strength of it.

Food

Alongside religions, clothing, festivals, ceremonies and superstitions, food is another

important part of culture. Most countries have their own cultural food or main dish. For
example, when talking about Italy, what comes to mind is the fame of spaghetti. When you go
to Indonesia, India, Madagascar or Far East in general, rice is almost always the main food.
France is famous with wine. In Turkey, people cannot eat without having bread with their meals.
These are just a few examples. There are certainly many more countries which have different

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types of traditions. For instance, some kitchen traditions can be very interesting. One’s delicious
cultural food can be disgusting for another culture. Many people experience culture shock when
they witness new cuisine in a new culture. But in digital age, people can easily learn about other
cuisine. It is people’s choice to taste or not to taste foods when they move or live in other
culture. Technology makes it easy to find information about what Aborigines eat. They will
have more experience before visiting or living in those cultures, such as Chinese or Italian boil,
Indians and Frenchs fry or African cooks.

Culture Shock

Generally speaking, people experience culture shock whenever they change their usual
settings. When culture shock occurs, things get harder to live with unrecognized people. Even
worse, they may do things completely opposite to the customs and traditions of the locals. When
they are unfamiliar with the culture of the country, they do not understand a lot of things and
try to avoid humiliation and all of these in mind, they will probably experience anxiety. As
Oberg (1960) says, culture shock is experienced with anxiety stemming from losing all familiar
signs, symbols and perceptions of social communication.The same thing happens when
someone is unfamiliar to a new culture. They feel uncomfortable or anxious most of the time.
People are noticed easily when they experience culture shock. Some examples are (Pacific.edu);
-Extreme homesickness,
-Feelings of helplessness and dependency.
-Disorientation and isolation.
-Depression and sadness.
-Hyperirritability may include inappropriate anger and hostility.
-Sleep and eating disturbances (too little or too much)
-Excessive critical reactions to host culture/stereotyping.
Generally the people feel and live by themselves. It can be said that getting used to the new
culture and get over culture shock needs time and patience.

Technology and Culture Shock

Our world is now overwhelmed with the use of technology. This fact has different
consequences on different domains. What we want to focus here is how rapidly the change of
technology affects people and how technology itself affects culture. Technology cannot be
blamed totally as the worst thing to happen in human history. Yet, it cannot be accepted as the
sole thing that we must rely on constantly. We all know that technology can both be good and
bad for the society. The most noticeable effect of technology is the fact that it facilitates the
lives of mankind but on the other hand it also increases the possibility of separation in society
and disappearance of the culture importance.
Internet helps people indirectly. One cannot touch it but one can feel and see how
capable it is of making the world smaller. Internet brings distances closer. Things which are
very far may be very close under favour of Internet. So, people can be easily aware of others
and their culture. The living styles and standards can be variant in different societies. With a
help of technology, people can learn about each other’s customs and traditions easily.
Culture is formed through communications and interactions among people.
Furthermore, culture is not stagnant; rather it is constantly changing and evolving through
interactions among people within a culture and with those of other cultures. Learning about
one’s own and other foreign cultures during the enculturation and acculturation processes also
critically depends upon absorption of new information and interpersonal communications

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(Joag, 2012). According to Joag, communication is important either to form a culture or to keep
the culture to be fresh. Technology can be used to communicate and interact with other people
virtually. Technology may able to form culture by using communication through social media
or whatever but it is more capable of ruining the interaction between everyone in the society.
One of the best things about culture is to transfer useful information between each other in the
society, having real conversation and good time together. But with excessive use of technology,
this genuine interaction will be ceased eventually.
There are a lot of different things that exist in this world and most of them are shared
through the Internet. So, it shows and offers transcendent experiences and a new kind of
lifestyle for people and the other societies (Yiwu, 2008). As a result, people are enjoying
themselves more by seeing what pleases them. Some people are able to control it but some are
using it excessively. Technology can also affect the culture of the next generation by the
excessive use of media. Cultures around the world are not exactly similar to each other. What
is legal in one country may be illegal in the other. Every society wants to preserve their culture
as much as possible. But whenever we are under the influence of the media, we will probably
lose the strength of our culture. It is clear that how television has changed the families’ values
and relations in public between people and communities (Chambers, 2011). It can be said that
technology has removed the physical and mental barriers between the cultures and societies.
Because of the media, people are sometimes traumatised and they make a judgement by simply
looking at the other peoples' appearance. Media’s showing the other cultures traditions and
habits all the time makes them not unusual any longer. They are getting normal with their
culture identity to other people.
Media, which is the popular part of technology, is the most life changing entity that exists
nowadays. Clothing, food, religion and festival are also affected by the power of media. People
used to have their own way of clothing, their own special food and beliefs and their own way
of celebrating an event. But now, that is not the case. Everything has changed and almost has
lost the original state of the culture. Those who already born with the usage of technology can
use it easily.

Discussion and Conclusion

Almost every culture has their traditional day or festival at least once a year. There are
some practices of cultures which are observed on a daily basis by the members of that particular
community. To consider all, we could see that cultures vary a lot in different countries and in
different families. Sometimes, this may effect to our psychological state especially when we
are starting to live in other country which is completely different to ours. Culture shock shows
its face at that time. Everyone who tries to locate in a different society experiences culture
shock. But nowadays, by the help of technology people aware of the other cultures and their
life styles. People can take of the physical and mental barriers by getting information and
sharing some experiences to other cultures by technology.
Up until here it has been told that how technology in our lives impacts our culture and
our daily life. Our culture may still exist but not in its original state anymore. It has already
been modified. As the technology still evolves, our culture will keep on changing. As long as
culture keeps changing, people experience new culture shocks. This is unavoidable. This culture
shock is not limited, just the obvious meaning of culture itself. It can also be referred to how
people react to new technology either in the country. Think about getting or sharing other
cultures with a use of technology, one must ensure for others to understand how the technology
is enlarge the perspective and they can use it effectively. The technology may reduce the culture
shock for the people who live in different culture.

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 Technology-culture shock relation needs to be researched with surveys and scales. This
may help us understand how much technology helps to reduce culture shock for people. Getting
more information on culture and sharing, would prepare that person to be aware of the culture
shock.
.

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