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,
The topic of technology and our society has become a very controversial subject today. Many people believe that technology is an essential component of our modern world, helping us to improve communication from farther distances as well as giving us easy access to important information. On the other hand, there is the opinion that too much technology is affecting social interactions and our basic development. “Technology…is a queer thing, it brings you great gifts with one hand, and stabs you in the back with the other.” (Carrie Snow.) The CBC Documentary “Are We Digital Dummies” displayed the pros and cons when it comes to modern technology that we use in the western world everyday.
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
A disregard for social consequences: Social constructivist writing explains how technologies come to be, however it ignores the consequences of technologies and the impac...
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...
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.
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...
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.
Borgmann, Albert. Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. A Philosophical Inquiry. The University of Chicago Press, 1984.
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.
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
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).
The standard 21 year old adults have exchanged 250 thousand emails, spent 5 thousand hours video gaming and 10 thousand hours using their mobile devices (Lei, 2009). When people hear the word technology, they think of microwaves, televisions, cars, NASA, different types and transportation and more. For all that, technology has occurred long ahead these discoveries. Technology is an arguable matter amongst people. .In the old days, people lived an extremely simple life without technology. They used candles to light their houses and lanterns at the dark to travel, they used fire to cook and used newspapers and mail to share news. On the other hand, technology has seized an important place in our society. People are living in a stage of progressive technology. They are using all natural reserves applicable for making their lives better and easier. The society cannot picture life without electricity since it allows them to live through their everyday life. This paper argues that technology positively impacts people’s lives.
...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.