As decades and centuries pass, technology evolves. Machines become more efficient, and communication between locations becomes easier. Due to this, the process of doing things changes. Especially with the advent of the Internet, it is important to understand and look deeper into the effects of technology on society, as it is “complexly woven into the circumstances and rhythms of social life” (Gasher, Skinner and Lorimer, 2012, p. 155). For this reason, there are various perspectives on technology. These perspectives, as demonstrated by Andrew Feenberg (1999) in Questioning Technology, are: instrumentalism, determinism, substantivism, constructivism, and critical theory. Being a socio-technical ensemble, the smartphone is an example of technology The railway did not introduce movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society, but it accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure. (McLuhan, 1964, p. 8) He addresses the machine as the subject of an active predicate, which is often used in popular discourse of technological determinism as means of presenting a complex event as an inescapable and plausible result of an innovation in technology (Marx, 1994, p. 10). However, a limitation usually attributed to this perspective is that it often fails to consider human agency and its contributions, especially towards technological progression. While technological determinism may be considered as neutral or slightly optimistic, substantivism is a related perspective that considers how technology frames and influence humanity, often to their detriment. This perspective follows the same view that technology progresses without human directive, however, with the added notion that technology maintains a position of power, as society is structured around it. Heidegger, a well-known substantivist,
This story observes human relations with technology and warns us of the potential consequences of allowing technology to supplement our self-sufficiency. Varshavsky shows us that we will become indistinguishable from technology, that this technology will eventually demand equality, and that this technology will steal our self-sufficiency while also becoming self-reliant. There are hints at Varshavsky’s imagined human-technology relations in current day. Society’s requirement of computers to function in the economy as laborers and consumers is one example. Another instance of society’s reliance on technology is the use of cameras and security systems to ensure safety. Another different type of technology humans rely on is pesticide to grow food for consumption. None of these examples point to technology as a negative aspect of society. On the contrary, technology has allowed human societies to expand and flourish. However, the most poignant example of Varshavsky’s envisioned human-technology relationship is human reliance on the cellphone. To name a few benefits, cellphones allow people to remember things they would otherwise forget, share their ideas with each other, and communicate with people they would normally have trouble maintaining a relationship. Cellphones are becoming a vital part of consumer culture and human existence. Without them society will digress back to a slower social, cultural, and economic existence. Human reliance on cellphones could be the first steps toward Ilya Varshavsky’s “Perpetual Motion” becoming
In today’s society technology is everywhere, whether it be in a car, on a billboard, a laptop, or even on one’s phone. However, is all this technology a bad thing or is it truly a worldwide phenomenon. Even back during 1992, author Neil Postman wrote about how technology is both a blessing and a burden. Many people believe Postman’s views are arrogant or far-fetched, but there are also those who agree with him about the dangers of technology.
People all around agree that technology is changing how we think, but is it changing us for the better? Clive Thompson definitely thinks so and this book is his collection of why that is. As an avid fiction reader I wasn’t sure this book would captivate me, but the 352 pages seemingly flew past me. The book is a whirlwind of interesting ideas, captivating people, and fascinating thoughts on how technology is changing how we work and think.
When it comes to the definition of technology in their articles, both Carr and Cascio have similarities and differences. Both authors are debating about the use of technology in today’s society. Both of their articles touch base on the ideals of “what technology is” in their perspectives. Carr believes that technology is making us want the quick path to information or common knowledge and says the Internet is “a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information”. Cascio also believes th...
Albert Borgmann follows the general project by Heidegger to see how technology has harmful effects on humanity and to determine how it can be reformed. Borgmann shares Heidegger’s view that modern technology is starkly different from premodern technology in its pattern of disclosing the world to human beings. Borgmann agrees that a sort of ethical reform must be undertaken to limit technological ways of living from dominating the lives of individuals and to keep technology in its place. His proposal for a direction of reform first takes cues from Heidegger but then asserts the need for different tactics.
How is technology seen today? The current conception of technology is that it is an activity of man toward some end. Heidegger wants to replace this correct conception with a true, free relationship in order to “open our human existence to the essence of technology” (QCT). By removing man’s insistent nature that sees only what is closest and most obvious, he remove his biases and preserves his “own special nature--that he is a meditative being” (DoT). By reminding man to think without insistence, we thereby bring him closer to the distant truth, that Being has multiple appearances within a single being, not just what appears ready-at-hand. Technology can further this thinking without insistence, but only if one primally sees that technology “must be understood as a way of revealing the totality of beings” in their capacity to be managed (QCT). This esse...
At the beginning of the industrial revolution in England during the mid-nineteenth century, the railroad was the most innovative mode of transportation known. The British Rail system was a forerunner in railroad technology, uses, and underground engineering. Though the rail system was extremely slow at first and prohibitively expensive to build and run, the British were not to be dissuaded in their pursuit of non-animal driven transportation. The most advanced mode of transportation prior to the introduction of the rail system was the horse drawn omnibus on a track, called a tram. This paper will examine the rail system from a cultural perspective, presenting the impact the railway had on everyday lives in Victorian London and its surrounding communities.
Winner, L. (1993). Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology. Science, Technology And Human Values, 18 pp. 362-378.
Technology has always been at the forefront of the world’s mind, for as long as anyone can remember. The idea of “advancing” has been a consistent goal among developers. However, recently the invention of smartphones broke out into the world of technology, causing millions of people to become encapsulated in a world of knowledge at their fingertips. Jean Twenge elaborates on the impacts of the smartphone on the younger generation in her article “Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?” Twenge’s article is just a sliver of the analysis that she presents in her book “IGen.” Twenge, a professor of psychology at San
Indispensable to understanding the complexity of the problem of technology, in both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and William Gibson's Neuromancer, is the historical context in which the two were written. Whereas Frankenstein was written in a period of dramatic change - that of the Industrial revolution, in Neuromancer, Gibson echoes the opinion of economists who believe that we are currently experiencing the beginning of a profound economic revolution, due to the breakthroughs in information and communication technology, and which some believe is equal in magnitude to the industrial revolution. The second leitmotif of my research is that of nature in reference to technology. Here I describe the relation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to technology and some of the crucial issues co...
The opinions of many people vary on technology and the effects it has on today’s society. Some say that it’s more beneficial than anything, others completely disagree, and some have mixed emotions. Would you rather read out of a book, or play online learning games with a possible risk of eye problems? It’s about taking matters into your own hands. 71% of people believe technology has improved their lives. 76% of people completely disagree by saying that technology creates a lazy society and that is distracting and corrupting. Daily life with technology is also another huge issue in society. According to a survey taken in January 2013, people feel their work productivity has dropped 8% in the last year. They also felt that their relationships with their family at home dropped 4% in the past year. The opinions vary, but they are needed to show how technology is affecting different people.
The broad aspect of technology in our daily social lives is to simplify or reduce a task’s load. We create cars so they are able to drive us to places rather than walking. Through the expansion of cellular devices, we have never been as connected as we are today. We are creating automated devices to prolong our connection online. Automated cars are popularized due to human error; many lives are lost in automotive related accidents. Although, this is merely not the only case, we have created automated cars so deaths due to the use of cellular devices while driving decrease drastically. Currently we are facing with more than half a million injuries or deaths because of cellular devices [5]. We tackle not the problem itself but instead find another path that we have yet to walk on. We are letting technology do everything it possibly can, to ensure we stay connected with it. This ties strongly to whether we as humans have the ability to control the expansion of technology. The answer is no, what started as means of convenience, has grown into a battle of how out of touch we can be with
...fferent way creating a new mean of definition in each. We become so emerged in technology and the instrumentality of it, that we forget the way our world used to be. Heidegger uses the many examples of modern technology of the airliner, Rhine River and human kind as standing reserve, ready for human command at anytime. Although, he explains the old world of technology examples of the Rhine River and the forest, which once stood as a part of nature. Now the river is dammed supplying power and the forest is being used for the paper industry under the command of humans. Not under this command, the things controlled remain as Heidegger says, standing-reserve, on call for human demand and benefit.
Technology determinism can be thought as a theory of social change through technology itself. Andreas Hepp and Friedrich Krotz (2014, p. 110) discusses theorists have limited and avoid themselves on the argument on technology fearing there may be an indication of technological determinism. Furthermore, to suggest modern technology plays an insignificant role in mediation, as mediation is not bound by the modern technology but is subject to how society tends to communicate. Hepp and Krotz (2014, p. 111) further discloses the contradiction of their summary that the future will have objects that will interact intelligently and it will be difficult to determine the difference between such intelligent objects to those of living. A curious fact is that, society will raise questions which idealise and
There is no doubt that the accomplishments made through technology are astonishing. Technology has made amazing impacts on everything from science in space to medical science to the devices we use every day that make our lives easier. People are living longer and better than ever before, but we can’t forget how to live without it. “Just because technology is there and makes something easier doesn’t mean we should rely on it so much that we can’t think for ourselves,” (Levinson).