This course explores the question: Is technological progress driven by societal needs or does technology itself drive social change, analyzing the social role of technology and the interactions that drive its development.
From the invention of the hatchet to the automobile and the computer, humanity has been constantly advancing technology, which has greatly improved our quality of life. Today, people use cars to travel long distances quickly, and computers to perform tasks that humans can’t do themselves. Technology has become an integral part of human life, and we wouldn’t have the modern civilization we have today without it. But how have these technological advances come about?
First of all, there’s a distinction between science and technology. While science is the understanding and exploration of natural phenomena, technology is the application of this scientific knowledge to practical uses that benefit humans. Heidegger defined technology as the way humans treat the world in a certain way, seeing it as the “will” to evaluate everything in the world on the basis of its calculability, usefulness, and efficiency, ultimately turning it into a resource that can benefit humans. This “will” has played an important role in the development of technology. This “will” is why humans have been constantly researching and developing technology. In other words, unlike science, technology ultimately evolves to fulfill human needs, and it changes to meet those needs. The argument that technology is driven by social needs is known as social constructionism.
Social constructionism argues that political, economic, organizational, and cultural factors intervene in the process of technological change, and that technology changes under the influence of social situations or social groups. In other words, technology is not simply a neutral tool for solving problems; it reflects political, social, and cultural values, and technology embodies the broader social values and interests of those who design and use it.
Finch and Biker, both science and technology scholars, pioneered social constructionism with a case study about the evolution of the bicycle. In the early days of bicycle development, sport bicyclists preferred models with large front wheels that allowed for strenuous exercise. However, women wore long skirts, making it difficult for them to pedal the large front wheels. In response, engineers developed safety bicycles for women with smaller front wheels and cushioned tires. This model proved to be able to reach higher speeds, and the current model of safety bicycles became established. In this process, the conclusion that safety bicycles were superior to other bicycles was not constructed by technical logic, but rather by a series of contingent events that emerged from the interaction between social groups and the artifact of the bicycle. Finch and Biker argued that the discourse about the effectiveness of safety bicycles was actually reconstructed to justify the process after the debate was closed.
In addition to this, one of the most obvious examples of social constructionism is the technological advancements that result from warfare. Human history is a history of warfare, and humans have been constantly fighting each other. Warfare has arisen from the survival process of taking the property of others and defending one’s own, and in this process there has been a tremendous effort to acquire stronger fighting skills. Ancient humans used natural stones as weapons, but to survive against other tribes, they needed harder weapons, which led to the invention of bronze and iron. The progression to bronze and iron all stemmed from a societal need to develop stronger weapons.
Over time, technology advanced by leaps and bounds with the creation of the discipline of military engineering. Military engineering is the oldest form of engineering and is the foundation of modern engineering: the discipline of architectural design developed from engineering to build forts and bridges, and communication technology developed to stay in touch during wartime. Other advances in modern technology, such as the development of gunpowder, the development of electricity generation, and the development of nuclear energy for the atomic bomb, were all born out of the need to win wars. From military engineering came civil engineering, which was driven by the need to build roads, bridges, water systems, etc. to make people’s lives more comfortable. In the modern era, technological advancements have come by leaps and bounds from these two branches of engineering, showing that technological advancements are driven by social needs.
The opposing argument to social constructionism is ‘technological determinism’. Technological determinism argues that technological progress is the central cause of social change. Technological determinists believe that technology is autonomous and exists outside of society, and that the development of technology and its social impact is already embedded in the technology itself. In other words, technological determinism holds that technology acts as the most important independent variable driving social change. But can technology develop without social need?
A classic example of technological determinism is the stirrups (foot rests) of the medieval West. Technological determinists argue that stirrups improved horsemanship and raised medieval lords with large-scale conquests, giving rise to feudalism. However, this may be a stretch: stirrups were introduced in response to a societal need for a combat advantage, and feudalism was introduced in response to the chaos of immigrant invasions, which made national defense impossible and led to local self-defense systems.
Alvin Toffler’s “Third Wave” also illustrates the position of technological determinism. Toffler explains that the invention of the iron age led to the agricultural revolution (the first wave), the invention of the machine led to the industrial revolution (the second wave), and the invention of the PC and the internet led to the information revolution (the third wave). However, it is difficult to explain all three waves solely by technological invention. Agriculture was a natural outgrowth of humans’ desire to settle down after a precarious hunting life; the Industrial Revolution was the result of rich people seeking to maximize profit-making in order to accumulate more wealth; and the Information Age was a phenomenon of economically enriched people seeking intellectual enrichment. In other words, social change is driven by social need, and technological advances are a natural outgrowth of that process.
As we’ve seen, technology is inherently meant to benefit humans, so it’s very important to consider whether a technology will be useful to human life before it’s developed. Technological determinists argue that new technologies are developed first and then people are affected by them, but that’s not what technology is about. Technology is developed to benefit people, so societal needs are integral to technology development, and technology development should occur in tandem with societal changes.
The engineering that develops technology is ultimately profit-driven, so when developing a new technology, the first consideration is whether it will be useful to people and worth the cost. This is even more pronounced in modern technology development, where developing a new technology when so much technology has already been accumulated requires huge research costs. So when a country or company invests money in technology development, they do so by assessing whether the technology will meet societal needs in the long run and whether it fits with social change.
When it first appeared, the Concorde was considered a “dream airliner” capable of supersonic flight, and was expected to popularize supersonic aircraft. However, the creation of sonic booms, excessive fuel consumption, and expensive fares turned people away, and it eventually fell into disuse. Why did the state-of-the-art supersonic airliner fail, while the technologically backward Boeing succeeded, and why is there no further push for technological development in the aircraft sector? Take the example of video calling on cell phones: people prefer to make regular calls even when they have the ability to talk face-to-face. This is due to people’s desire for personal space and anonymity. As a result, the resources invested in the development of video calling technology failed to shine, and no further investment was made in improving its functionality. This is an example of a failed business that pursued technological advancement while overlooking social needs. No matter how innovative a new technology is, if there is no demand for it, it will fail.
The examples and evidence above confirm that technology has evolved in response to societal needs, as social constructionism argues. Social constructionism emphasizes that the most important factor in technological development is social need. However, technological development in South Korea tends to be driven by the pursuit of “new things. Engineers rush to develop new technologies in order to get research grants, and don’t really think about what society needs. This is the same path as the failure of the Concorde airliner and the development of video calling technology. From a social constructionist perspective, this is a pointless act, and these technologies will eventually become obsolete. This is why Korea’s technology level is stagnant. There is a lot of room to develop useful technologies not only through new technologies but also through improvements to existing technologies. True technological advancement requires engineers to have the insight to determine what society needs and what technologies are in line with current social changes.
