It Is Not All About Technology
The concept of technology has been used broadly and repeatedly. Society, on the other hand, has its own meaning especially when is used in relation with effects of technology.
Payam Dowlatyari
There is no dispute over the fact that the new form of technology such as social media has been playing a significant role in forming society’s constructs and shaping cultures over recent years. Although the impact of technology on society and culture has a much longer history. Having said that, one might wonder how much authority technology has in relation to developing society’s norms. Plus, it could be asked: is technology an abstract concept? What about society? Do technology and society exist in two separate worlds? Does technology control our lives directly? Arguably, technology exists as a medium that has been designed, created, shaped, evolved and more importantly adapted by society throughout history. Society itself is an essential factor in terms of its adaption with technology and the extent it is impacted by technological innovations. In fact, as society creates technology, technology can be used by people to reshape civilization.
Social media is probably one of the most widely used terms and has become an important part of our lifestyles. Therefore, there are various types of arguments around this topic either for or against the effects of such a technological phenomenon. Some suggest that social media can provide benefits more than its negative impacts, while others believe it has an inevitable destructive influence on people’s quality of living, and particularly, in terms of human interactions. In addition to different points of view about technology including social media, from a journalist’s perspective, Stephen Marche (2012) presents an interesting interpretation and analysis of the problem in his article Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? Broadly speaking, while the author analyzes the effects of technology on society, he provides an example that indicates the contrast between the way people present themselves in social media and who they are. As an example, a movie star dies alone while none of her thousands of followers knew about that until her body was discovered after days (p. 60). Even though that example cannot be generalized to the whole community of social media users, it might be helpful to consider that paradox as a starting point for further analysis.
In view of the distinction between loneliness and being alone, the author explains, although loneliness and being alone are different concepts, many people, who seem to have a wide circle of connections suffer from loneliness because such a feeling exists in the person’s mind rather than acting as an external mechanism (p. 62,64). In addition, Marche mentions a number of studies that show people now feel lonelier compared to previous decades. In reference to a study, “A 2010 AARP survey found that 35 percent of adults older than 45 were chronically lonely, as opposed to 20 percent of a similar group only a decade earlier” (Marche, 2012, p. 64). Those studies show the existence of a paradox such that despite enormous improvements in communication devices and information technology and, in particular, social media which makes people so much more accessible in many different forms, they feel unbelievably lonelier than before the major revolution of information.
Speaking of how loneliness has become an issue in modern society, unlike a few decades ago, people are less dependent on each other, family, and even governments. Meanwhile, individualism has become one of the most crucial aspects of modern society. According to Marche (2012), “American culture, high and low, is about self-expression and personal authenticity. Franklin Delano Roosevelt called individualism the great watchword of American life” (Marche, 2012, p. 64). However, individualism, in the sense that a person has a high level of self-esteem along with believing in self authenticity, is somewhat different than isolation and loneliness.
Considering the facts mentioned including the individualist culture, many social media users and the increase of loneliness in society, one can jump to the conclusion that technology causes loneliness. However, there is no evidence proving social media and loneliness have a cause and effect relation. While there might be some correlations between those statistics, correlation does not imply causation. It also cannot be concluded that such cases demonstrate the absolute and one-directional impact of technology on society. Important to realize, it is not all about technology, it is about how people use it. In detail, technology is not the only determinant because this is not the technology that interacts with people in the form of social media. People interact with each other by utilizing what technology has offered them.
Technological determinists assume that technology determines the development of society. In other words, technological innovations shape society and the way cultural systems are formed. Ronald Kline (2015) from Cornell University discusses different aspects of this topic in his paper entitled Technological Determinism. Kline notes that technological determinism is trying to define the link between technology and society. There are two main arguments in such a perspective. First, internal logic determines the design of technology. Next, the advancement of technology determines changes in society. The second argument is more popular and is related to Karl Marx’s theory of history (p. 109). In another paragraph, the author clarifies, “It is important to distinguish between widely held beliefs that autonomous technology is the primary cause of social change and the use of the term technological determinism” (Kline, 2015, p. 109). Further, he emphasizes the importance of social and cultural changes involved in using technology and concludes that technology shapes society although it is not the only determinant.
There is another academic paper, about technological revolution and its effects on society, entitled Technological Change and the Sociotechnical System, Applied Psychology of. According to the authors, Hesketh and Grako (2015), “Technological change has an obvious and direct impact on the technical system but also on the social/cultural and management systems” (Hesketh and Grako, p. 104). Moreover, while the authors define social media, “Social media refers to web-based dialogues between communities, organizations, and individuals” (Hesketh and Grako, p. 106), they mention some positive effects of it on society, specifically, in the subject of employment. To point out, online services can assist unemployed people to connect to recruiters (p. 106). Given that, they end the article with a socio-technical point of view where they state, “Researchers developed a model of technology appropriation to describe the processes through which users adopt, adapt, and then incorporate technology with their personal, social, or work practices. This approach sees people shaping and being shaped by systems they use” (Hesketh and Grako, p. 104). Based on that point of view, although society is influenced by technology in so many ways, it not the only factor that develops or destroys society. In a sociotechnical approach, both technology and society can shape each other. In addition, a socio-technical perspective is an approach to understanding the relationship between people, society, and technology, and focuses on discovering the impact of the interaction between individuals and technological aspects of society. Furthermore, Kling (1999) suggests that a socio-technical system consists of people in different positions and connections with other elements, hardware, software, techniques including management principles, support resources such as training services, and information structures or access controls which indicates who can use specific systems and access certain information. Apart from that, he notices that those elements are not totally independent and static. Evidently, they are in a relationship with social and technical dependencies (p. 19). In a socio-technical approach to the design of technology, a designer must work through the process of discovering who the users are, what they need and how they interact with the system.
Properly speaking, as studies show, technological changes can impact our lives. However, it is not only the power of technology that creates and shapes society, but the power also belongs to the culture that decides to what degree technology can afford to influence it. As people from diverse groups, with different ages, socioeconomic classes, geographic areas, nationalities, cultures, backgrounds, etc. use technology, it must be adapted and designed specifically for its audience based upon their various needs, goals, and expectations. While there is no doubt that technology is an influential factor in developing society, it is a society that forms itself and modifies the way technology works. From a sociotechnical perspective, society and technology are not living in separate spheres but they are interrelated concepts that both have positive and negative effects on one another.
References
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Hesketh, B., & Graco, W. (2015). Technological Change and the Sociotechnical System, Applied Psychology of. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 104–108.
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Kline, R. (2015). Technological Determinism. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 109–112.
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Kling, R. (1999). What is social informatics and why does it matter? D-Lib Magazine, 5(1). Retrieved from dlib.org
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Marche, S. (2012, May). Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? The Atlantic. Retrieved from theatlantic.com