Technology and Us

It seems that humanity is stuck with technology. Literally, we’ve been inseparable from  our little trinkets since our forebears realized that life would be pretty crapy and short if they didn’t rub their pair of brain cells together to come up with some sort of labor-saving device.

One gets  pretty excited about technology –  especially when one is sponsered by Intel…

Ok, despite that sounding like the ofspring of an auctioneer and a thesaurus, many agree with that point of view.

There has been much debate about the merits and detriments of technology. There exists the extreme proponents and opponents on the issue.

One identifies with neither of these camps, Yet:

In their book  Culture and Technology  A. Murphie and J. Potts examine whether there is an inherent outcome when technology is used (either good or bad). Their contention is reached in stating that technology doesn’t “determine” but instead it  simply “operate(s)” within a “complex” social  setting. Thus, it is their finding that technology  itself is objective in its capabilities ,  and can be utilized for specific positive or negative outcomes.

But something still troubles me about this theory. It seems that a lot of the ‘decisions’ made by a society about a particular technology, are done so passively and without  thought. They were not literal decisions. There was no plebiscite as to whether mobile phones should be widely adopted. Furthermore, an adoption of  new technology is done in inherent ignorance. It is inherent, since the only research done at  the  point of a product’s release regarding its benefits, is done by the  people wanting you to buy it. This is why the detriments of a technology are always discovered years later.

That  is why this happens:

 

Guy one: hey this stuff is brilliant! it’s an awesome insulator and it’s fire retardant!

Guy two: what an awesome new technology!

Everyone else: awesome!

Parent: let’s make a sandpit out of it!

Everyone else: yeah! why not!

People jeer at this  now and genrally dismiss it as ignorance  of the  past. But its easy to forget that this type of thing isn’t connected to the entitiy of ‘the past’ it is potetnutally conected to  the  emurgance of any technology that hasn’t stood the test of time.

In the dacedes preceding the poularity of asbestos,  it was DDT. Before that it was lead in  make-up. Hmmm so  what will be the asbestos, DDT and lead of our times?

Maybe mobile phones?

If you ask any mobile phone user (of which  I am  one (Duh)) whether they think its safe… the answer is obvious: they use one so they think its safe.

 

Everyone else: yeah! why not!

People jeer at this  now and generally dismiss it as ignorance  of the  past. But its easy to forget that this type of thing isn’t connected to the entity of ‘the past’ it is potentially connected to  the  emergence of any technology that hasn’t stood the test of time.

In the decades preceding the popularity of asbestos,  it was DDT. Before that it was lead in  make-up. Hmmm so  what will be the asbestos, DDT and lead of our times?

Maybe mobile phones?

If you ask any mobile phone user (of which  I am  one (Duh)) whether they think its safe… the answer is obvious: they use one so they think it’s safe.

So while technology can seen as objective; tossed and turned at  the whim  of  society, the fact remains: We dont know everything abount the technologies we produce.  As much as some people hate to admit, we are not that clever.  Technology (in my humble opinion) is not an extenssion of our minds… if it were we would  know any and every varaible it posesses. No, it seems that technolgy is just us silly creatures doing the best we can with  our conidtion here on this blue marble.

References:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3091148/Chilling-image-shows-miners-playing-asbestos-shovelling-competition.html
A. Murphie and J. Potts (2002), Culture and Technology (Palgrave MacMillan) [Introduction and Ch.1 on ‘Theoretical Frameworks’]
Technology