This article explores the question of whether technology is an inevitable cause of social change or a dependent outcome whose impact depends on human intentions and social characteristics. The invention of technology and the resulting social change is never inevitable, and is determined by a variety of factors in human society.
Historians often divide time periods based on major technological developments, such as the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Iron Age, and Industrial Age. The development of technology in human history has had great social and economic significance. Since ancient times, humans have been constantly developing ways to use the things around them to make their lives more comfortable. They invented spears and axes instead of clubs to protect themselves from external threats, figured out how to farm and make vessels to store grain instead of relying on unreliable food supplies. Groups that invented new technologies could become wealthier and more powerful than those that didn’t, and other groups copied them, spreading the technology far and wide. New technologies continued to be invented and used throughout the rest of history, with the less useful ones soon disappearing and the useful ones spreading widely and driving the development of civilization.
This power of technology gave rise to the theory of technological determinism, which holds that it is technology, not people, that determines social change. Technological determinists argue that the cause of social change is not our will, but the inevitable advancement of technology as science advances. For example, the invention of metal type led to the democratization of books, which radically transformed medieval European society. The widespread availability of the Bible, which had been the preserve of a select few, led to the religious revolution and raised the level of consciousness of the people, leading to the Renaissance. The invention of the stirrups also led to the development of mounted combat, which gave rise to the knightly class and formed the medieval feudal system. The argument of technological determinism is that these social changes are the inevitable result of technological progress. So, are all human social changes the inevitable result of technological inventions that will one day occur as science advances, independent of human will? No, they are not. Technology is developed with human intention and is dependent on human society, and social change is not inevitable.
Although science and technology are often referred to as “science and technology” and are closely related, they are not the same thing. Science is the experimental and theoretical proof of the laws of the world that already exist, and technology is the creation of methods or tools that are useful to humans based on these scientific foundations. In other words, science is discovery and technology is invention. This is why science and technology differ in their development. Science is the process of searching for truths that are already known. It’s like reading a book that’s already been written. We can’t change the author’s book of truth, we can only read it page by page. Our reactions after reading a book vary from person to person, but we cannot change what is written in the book. Whether what is written in a book is useful or harmful to us doesn’t stop us from reading it; we just keep going, not knowing when it will end, but picking up where we left off. But technology is different. Technology is created by humans. If science is the process of reading a pre-determined book, technology is the process of reading a book and writing an essay. Just as an essay has an author, and the thoughts and intentions of that author, so does technology. Technology is the creation of a person or group of people applying the laws of science in their own way, and it contains the intentions of the inventor. For example, spears and axes were created to kill enemies, bowls to hold food, and so on, with clear intentions based on the needs of the people at the time. So while science is independent of human society, technology is dependent on human society.
Technology is created in response to human needs, meaning that inventors or groups of people create it to fulfill their own desires. The fact that the development of new technologies increases dramatically during times of war, an extreme situation, shows that the human will to need influences the development of technology. So, can we say that new technologies have changed society by creating new needs that did not exist before for members of society other than the inventors who were living without inconvenience? The demand that is revealed by the invention of a technology is not a demand that did not exist before, but a latent demand, that is, a demand that people have always wanted to do but did not have the technology to realize. Some newly invented technologies disappear because they are not used by others, while others are widely used and affect social change. This depends on whether the newly invented technology fulfills people’s unmet needs. Even if someone creates a technology out of necessity, if other people don’t need it – if there’s no demand – it won’t be used. If a newly invented technology matches a latent demand, that latent demand will surface and people will use the technology. For example, before stirrups were invented, people rode horses without stirrups, so there was no demand for them. However, the desire to ride a horse more comfortably existed before the invention of stirrups. The stirrups, combined with people’s unexpressed desire to ride more comfortably, created a strong demand that spread and became widespread, leading to a major social change: the emergence of the feudal system.
In the modern era, most people develop technologies to fulfill the hidden needs of society rather than their own needs from the beginning of research to make money. In other words, they predict and expect where and how their technology will be used and what changes it will bring. To some extent, they even anticipate and intentionally drive major societal changes. The social change that technology brings usually presupposes large-scale consumption of that technology. Since most modern technologies are developed for monetary reasons, the social change that comes from consuming them is often what the developers want. The proliferation of smartphones and the rapid development of related industries in recent years is a result of the companies that develop smartphone technology intentionally creating it to make more money.
However, it is not easy to predict how new technologies will affect human society. This is because different social groups react differently to the same technology, which means that social change is not inevitable. An example of this can be seen in how the East and the West react to the same technological invention, due to the different ideas and styles of social groups. The stirrup and metal type, both of which have had a decisive impact on Western society, were invented in the East. Hundreds of years ago, the Chinese used stirrups to run their powerful cavalry. However, the changes that led to the creation of a knightly class and the rise of feudalism in the West did not occur. China already had its own feudal system based on kinship. The invention of metal type also didn’t lead to the Reformation or the Renaissance in the East. This is because the characteristics of Chinese and Western religions are very different, and the level of civilization in China was superior to the West at the time. In this way, the same technology has a completely different impact on society due to many factors, including institutional, religious, and cultural differences.
As such, technology is subject to human influence from invention to diffusion. Technology emerges from the needs of society within the scientific level of society, interacts with various characteristics of society, and causes different changes depending on the characteristics of society. Therefore, technology is completely dependent on society, and the fundamental cause of social change caused by technology is society itself, which invented and consumes technology. Even now, many engineers are working on numerous technologies that will bring about social change. Social change is not an inevitable process that occurs under the influence of technology, but a result of technology that is dependent on society.
