Final answer:
Culture plays a key role in influencing access to and acceptance of technology, as it affects how technology interacts with existing norms and can lead to societal changes or conflicts. The digital divide and cultural lag are examples of how technological diffusion can be unequal and slow to integrate into nonmaterial culture.
Step-by-step explanation:
Culture can significantly influence both access to and acceptance of technology in various ways. Cultural inventions, such as information technologies, have the capacity to transform lifestyles, communication, education, and entertainment. However, the diffusion of these technologies often interacts with existing cultural norms, sometimes creating friction or resistance.
For example, in some societies where there is tight control over social interactions, especially among young women, mobile phones can provide a way for them to connect with others secretly, defying traditional norms. This illustrates how technology can be both a tool for liberation and a source of conflict within a cultural context.
The concept of the digital divide is also crucial, as there is an uneven access to technology influenced by race, class, and geographic lines. Furthermore, cultural lag might occur when material culture, such as technology, diffuses rapidly, but nonmaterial culture, such as beliefs and ideas, takes much longer to adapt to these changes, potentially leading to generational and cultural gaps.
Cultural factors are important when considering how technology is introduced and accepted in different societies. When core nations bring technology to peripheral and semi-peripheral nations, they may carry along their political ideologies and cultural assumptions, which could either support the functional expansion of societies or lead to cultural colonialism.