Steve Jobs’ innovative products have come to symbolize technological determinism because of the market response, but in reality they evolved in response to the times and consumer demand. The first smartphone, IBM’s Simon, was rejected because society wasn’t ready for it, but the iPhone met social demands and the mood of the times, leading to public enthusiasm. Even accidental discoveries like X-rays and penicillin became medical technologies because of social need. The idea is that technology and society develop in a complementary relationship, and neither is unilaterally influenced by the other.
“People don’t know what they want until you show them what they want. When Apple developed the iPhone and iPad, they didn’t need market research. Did Bell do market research when he invented the telephone? I want innovation.”
These are the words of Steve Jobs, creator of the world-changing iPhone. This suggests that many people don’t realize the value of a technology or product until it comes along, but only after they see the value of a new technology does society move forward. This is a view based on “technological determinism,” the idea that technology affects society.
On the other hand, when the iPad was released, the public reacted as follows. “It replaced several devices such as an e-reader, a game console, and a multimedia terminal (PMP) in one revolutionary product.” This suggests that many people were waiting for a tablet PC with a wide range of features and portability, even if they didn’t express it. The iPad fulfilled these consumer expectations and was accepted without resistance because people had already experienced PMPs, e-readers, and Nintendo. This is in line with the “social construction theory” that technology is created and developed by the demands of society’s members.
The debate over whether technology influences society or whether society and its members influence the development of technology has been going on for a long time, and this debate is theorized as “technological determinism” and “social constructionism” and is sharply divided.
In my opinion, most of the technologies in existence have been influenced by the members of society and the social climate, which means that whether a technology fulfills the needs of its members and whether society is advanced enough to accept it influences its adoption and development. Let’s go back to Steve Jobs: did he really do market research for his products? At the time, Apple focused on user interface to create a differentiated product, and Steve Jobs was at the center of it. Jobs was a fierce technological innovator, but his focus on creating a product that was easy for users to enjoy and use led to the iPhone. This shows that user-centered thinking was his way of doing market research.
Thinking about smartphones more broadly, many people think of the iPhone as the first smartphone, but the first smartphone was actually Simon, created by IBM in 1992. If technological determinists are to be believed, the global enthusiasm we saw when the iPhone arrived in 2007 should have happened 15 years earlier, in 1992. But Simon only sold about 50,000 units before being put on display in a museum. The concept of making calls on the go was new to people at this time, and they weren’t ready to embrace a cell phone that could do anything other than make calls. By the mid-2000s, when the iPhone was released, the situation was different: cell phones of all shapes and functions were already on the market, and people were frustrated with their existing phones. Recognizing this mood, Apple launched the iPhone by prioritizing user convenience and usability, and the public was able to get excited about it. This shows that technology is influenced by society, as the same kind of technology has different responses and evolves in different times.
The same is true for smartphone applications (apps) and app stores. Smartphone owners wanted more than just a phone, but what they wanted varied from person to person. This led to the creation of the app store, a platform where people could create, sell, and buy the features they wanted in the form of apps. The number of apps on the app store has grown exponentially due to consumers’ insatiable appetite for features, and as developers strive to make apps that sell better, app development technology has evolved rapidly. In this way, apps and app stores have evolved not just as technology, but also as a result of the social environment created by smartphones and consumers’ desire for new features.
Many other technologies in the past have been influenced by the social environment. Examples include the Internet, which was designed as a network that could operate in any situation, assuming a Soviet attack on the United States during the Cold War; computers, which started as military equipment for ballistic calculations and code breaking during World War II; and nuclear technology, which started as pure physics but evolved into a weapon of mass destruction due to the social climate of war.
It may be questioned that technologies that were first discovered through chance or experimentation, rather than being derived or developed from other technologies, have had an impact on society independently as source technologies unrelated to social needs. However, if you think about it a little deeper, you’ll realize that these technologies were ultimately influenced by the social environment and were only recognized and developed because of it.
Take, for example, X-rays, which are commonly used in hospitals today. Röntgen discovered an unexpected electromagnetic wave during an experiment to verify cathode ray fluorescence and named it “X-rays” because its identity was unknown. The accidental discovery of X-rays played a crucial role in identifying wounds in World War I, and medical technology rapidly advanced to where it is today. In the sense that medical technology was able to advance because of an accidental discovery, it may seem that technology has had an impact on society. However, it was only because the scientific community was interested in studying radiation that the discovery of X-rays was recognized as a technology and continued to be studied. If the field of electromagnetic waves or radiation hadn’t been developed at the time, X-rays would have been passed off as a simple experimental error, and the high number of injuries from the war made it possible to try to apply X-rays to medicine.
The same goes for Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. Penicillin is the basis of today’s antibiotics, and it has saved countless lives, but at the time, war wounded were often dying from bacterial infections, so Fleming wanted to find a way to inhibit the growth of bacteria, and his diligent work with bacterial cultures led to the discovery of penicillin. It was the social context of war that allowed Fleming to recognize the seriousness of bacterial infections and focus his research.
If X-rays had been discovered during a time when electromagnetic waves had not been studied, or during the Industrial Revolution instead of World War I, it is likely that X-rays would have been used for industrial purposes. Penicillin might not have been discovered if the war hadn’t caused so many casualties, or if Fleming hadn’t realized the seriousness of bacterial infections. This shows that even accidental discoveries can be recognized and developed as technology depending on the social environment in which they occur.
Technology has been shaped by society, and we live in a world of technological advancements. However, it is difficult to conclude that technology has only been influenced by society. Like the “chicken or the egg” question, it depends on the perspective and values of the person looking at it, and neither side is entirely right. There is a mutually reinforcing relationship where technology provides society with opportunities to advance to the next level, and society uses those opportunities to push technology forward for the better. It’s entirely possible that technology will have an even greater impact on society in the future.
