Friday, March 6, 2009

Does the Technological Determinism vs. Social Shaping debate accurately describe the relationship between Technology and Society?

Firstly, I would like to give a brief explanation of each ot these terms:

Technological Determinism
is a theory that technology is the driving force behind the social change throughout history and will continue to be in th future.

Social Shaping is a theorythat when technology is available, it is social issues that influence how it is used.

I am of the opinion that this debate does accurately describe the relationship between technology and society. There are many theorists out there who are in favour of Technoligical Determinsm such as Neil Postman who had a theory referred to as the Franenstein Syndrome: " One creates a machine for a particular and limited purpose. But once the machine is built, we discover, always to our surprise - that it has ideas of its own, that it is quite capable not only of changing our habits but of changing our habits of mind" (Neil Postman,1983). Does Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey
springs to mind here!!?

I can see why Postman minght have thought this. There are many cases where a machine is built that has the possibility of changing the way we might use it. It is clear the nowadays society depends largely on technolgy to communicate. Technologies such as emailing and sms messaging have replaced the more traditional ways of long distance communication such as letter writing. In some instances like this, technology can shape our social society.

Saying this, I am strongly in favour of Social Shaping of Technology. Ther term ' Necessity is the mother of all inventions ' sums up the relationship between technology and society. When there is need for something, it is humans that are the driving force in developing a solution to this need. Without humans, there would be no such things as technology. As humans have evolved so has the technolgy we humans use and need. There is constant technological development as our needs constantly change.
Over the past ten years, we have witnessed a huge growth in technological evolution. Technologies such as Internet, Mobile Communication and personal media devices have all changed due to social shaping and demand. A mobile phone now also acts as a web browser and media player due to the technological demand.

I believe that in the future technologies will continue to be shaped by society as long as there is a necessity. There will always be a human input into the development of technology...lets hope so anyway!


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