This article discusses the impact of smart technologies on society and the opposing arguments of technological determinism and social constructionism, explains the circular relationship between technology and society, and emphasizes the need for engineering students to consider social responsibility and the impact of future technologies.
We live in a world that benefits from many scientific and technological advances. Among these technologies, smart technologies are currently the most revolutionary in our lives. Smart technology is in the palm of our hands and has completely changed the way we see the world. The development of smart technology has created a huge community. We post our thoughts on social media in real time, and others see them and immediately express their thoughts or feelings. Smartphones have changed our concept of time and space, making it easier to stay in touch through a variety of devices, whereas in the past we had to communicate face-to-face. Not only that, but our access to information has dramatically improved, and we can literally lie down and get information with one hand. Companies have also moved away from billboards and TV commercials to smart marketing through Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.
The fact that smart technology has become so embedded in our lives is illustrated by a photo circulating on the internet that compares us from 10 years ago to today, where we are sitting around a table talking to each other, but each of us is looking at our smartphones. As you can see, technology is having a huge impact on our lives. But is that impact positive or negative?
There’s a theory that goes one step further than the conventional wisdom that technology has a huge impact on our lives. This is technological determinism, a theory that argues that all changes in our lives and social structures are a byproduct of technological progress. This theory sees technological progress as the central cause of social change. “Karl Marx exemplifies this when he says, “The millstone gave rise to feudal lords in human society, and the steam engine brought about the rise of industrial capitalists.” In the same vein, Lynn Townsend White Jr. discusses horsemanship in his book Society for the History of Technology. He argues that the introduction of stirrups, a foot rest that, along with the saddle, securely holds the rider’s feet on the horse so that his hands are free, dramatically improved the combat power of horsemanship in the medieval West, which led to massive conquests that eventually gave rise to feudalism.
However, this argument is criticized by counter-examples that show that the Anglo-Saxons introduced stirrups around the same time as the Frankish kingdoms, but did not establish feudalism. The argument that evil technology creates evil societies is also heavily challenged by those who believe that technology is value-neutral, which means that technology is not value-neutral. The idea that technology is value-neutral is that it is strictly neutral in itself, but its meaning or value is determined by the people who use it. “Alfred Nobel’s dynamite or Albert Einstein’s atomic bomb are examples of this. “Dynamite, which was developed by Alfred Nobel for industrial use in mines, was mainly used in wars, and the atomic bomb, which was developed by the Manhattan Project during World War II, is currently used as a technology that benefits humanity, such as nuclear power generation. In other words, there is no good or evil in technology itself, and society should use technology positively.
New arguments have been raised against technological determinism. This is social constructionism, which analyzes the intervention of political, economic, organizational, and cultural factors in the process of technological change. This theory argues that technology is ultimately a social process, and that it is driven by social needs. Social constructivists argue that changes in civilization are socially constructed, rather than caused by technological developments. For example, they argue that stirrups were developed because it was important to balance in situations where mounted combat was common. “Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker use the evolution of the bicycle to support this argument. They criticize the essentialism that the trajectory of technological development is already determined within the technology, emphasizing the social groups that played a role in its development. In response to the question, “How did the current bicycle model evolve?”, they argue that it was not only the technologists who built the bicycle, but also the various social groups surrounding the bicycle, such as men, women, and sports cyclists, who had their own preferences and interests, and who reached a consensus through complex negotiations that led to the selection of a stable bicycle model. This process of consensus is emphasized as a social process, meaning that the direction, content, and outcomes of technology are socially constructed by the interaction of social groups.
However, this argument hasn’t convinced all science and technology scholars. Social constructionism has been criticized for focusing only on the emergence of technology and not on its impact, meaning that it does not discuss how technology changes individual experiences or social relations once it is selected. It has also been criticized for ignoring the social structures and power relations that accompany technological change, and for being indifferent to the political issues surrounding technology.
These two opposing arguments are neither wrong nor right. The question of whether technology determines society or society determines technology is like the question of whether the chicken or the egg came first. In fact, society and technology are not in a vertical causal relationship, but rather a horizontal relationship in which one influences the other. For example, Steve Jobs created the iPhone with his creative ideas, which opened the world of smartphones, and users created a culture of smartphone use, and in the process, companies created new technologies to reflect these needs. In other words, technology itself is not good or evil and is projected onto society, but it is a circular relationship in which technology affects society and the needs of people in society are reflected back to technology. In this sense, technology and society are like Mobius’s belt. In part, technology and society seem to be distinct, but in the aggregate, they go through a circular process, endlessly repeating cause and effect.
Once science and technology are already in use, it is difficult to reverse them once they have established a strong social position. This is because technology is path dependent. Unlike technological determinism, path dependence does not imply that science and technology have superiority over society. However, it does mean that science and technology that is widely accepted by society has changed human habits. At this stage, it is pointless to make a dichotomy between science and society, science and culture, and ask which is superior. The two are already intertwined and become one. In this context, technology and society are in a circular and interactive relationship. Therefore, there is a strong complementarity between the study of the consequences of technological change and the study of its impacts. In other words, understanding the causes of technological change allows us to understand its consequences.
This fact has implications for current university students studying engineering. Engineering is an applied science that develops and practices industrial production technology according to natural scientific methods and results. In other words, engineering is not a discipline that is detached from reality, but rather a discipline that applies science and technology to society. Therefore, engineering students need to understand how technology and society affect each other. Engineering students have both an obligation to develop technologies that are positive and innovative for society and an obligation to reflect the needs of society’s members in their technologies. Just as smart technologies are having a significant impact on our society today, future technologies that will be developed in the future will also have a significant impact on our society. These future technologies include various technologies such as nanotechnology, environmental engineering, and biotechnology. Just as nuclear technology is currently controversial because it is in the same vein as the atomic bomb, so too will future technologies be controversial. In this situation, we need to consider how the technologies we have and will develop will affect humans and society, and develop the capacity to deal with the issues raised wisely.
