Technology, Social Order, And Change
The interaction between technology and humanity is much like the relationship between life, and art. Some say life imitates art. Others insist that art is a reflection of life, and illustrates what it perceives around it. Technology can be perceived as a series of locks and dikes through which the currents of humanity flow. Others insist that mankind has a firm grasp on the throttle of technological advancement, and that the technological machine is firmly within our control.
However, as with life and art, the distinctive lines which determine control and influence between technology and humanity are often smudged. Since the release of the desk top computer into (or onto) the population, society has been affected to a similar degree to which it has been served. Computers used to be limited to large corporations, to run only the most complicated tasks. Today are used to operate lights, regulate water, electricity, used in hospitals, store information, and produce elementary school children's book reports. There is more computing power in the average desktop computer than was built into the entire Apollo 13 space vehicle.
Closely behind the computer has followed the Internet, a new kind universe that exists only in wires and electronic bit streams. The Internet offers a vast array of information available to one click of the mouse. To many, the Internet is an alternate universe for the physical world. Here, freedom of speech is exercised to its fullest. Ideas, thoughts and opinions are expressed so freely that there are no limitations to one's grasp. While at the same time, communicating from...
A person is no longer at risk of being directly rejected if their ideas are outside of the social norms. In the event of a hostile response, the "Delete" key is never far away. We are insulated, while at the same time carrying on an interactive relationship. This oxymoron can drive our culture toward increased isolation, or it can cause the recognition of our need to socialize, to build intimate personal interaction, and to share life with others. Will technology guide society toward shallow e-lives, or will the culture insist that it remain the servant, constantly climbing out of intoxicating isolationism?
Society's view of technological advancement has changed during the past 30 years and this shift seem to closely mirror the rate at which technology has intertwined itself into our culture.
As the culture becomes more familiar with technological advancement, the changes are less formidable, and less threatening. In the 1970's, John Galbraith thought, as so many, that everything was run by five or six hundred companies, and the "techno-structure." technical change is the product of the matchless ingenuity of the small man forced by competition to employ his wits to better his neighbor. Unhappily, it is a fiction. Technical development has long since become the preserve of the scientist and the engineer."
Emmanuel Mesthene formulated his definition, "Technology then, is the product of interaction between man and the environment, based on a wide range of real or imagined needs and desires which guided man in his conquest of Nature."
In her book, The…
