Explore the Impact of Socioeconomic Factors on Technology (Case Study Sample)

the impact of socio-economic factors on technology
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2nd March 2016
Introduction
Today we live in a technology driven world. The world surrounding us, constantly changes in a break neck speed and often we are unable to catch the pace of it. It has become an imperative part of every human living in this world, finding its way into the daily lives of a person, like the mobile phones, for instance, which got transformed into smart phones and caught the fascination of humans, thereby inserting itself as an inevitable part of a person’s life. Everyone equally adapts themselves to this rapidly changing mechanism, be it rich or poor, there is no distinction at all. These scientific advances are termed by the media as ‘Technological determinism’. This topic is like a ‘Two-edged Sword’. It can either be viewed as the technology shaping the society or the society shaping the technology and that both of them lead to a change in the existing social processes. We shall now see how these technological advancements have a profound impact on the society.
Marshall McLuhan’s comparison
McLuhan argues that the mother of all technological advancements is the invention of electricity, which made things go instant. He also places his point of view on the very famous ‘Chicken or egg situation, which came first?’ as the chicken was the egg’s idea of increasing its numbers (Levine and McLuhan, 1964). If we place this particular argument on our concerned situation described above, it will be valid enough to say that the technological advancements utilizes the society for its growth and not the other way round. But, in my perspective, this ever-existing relation is a symbiotic relation. Both the factors need each other and they mutually co-exist, (i.e.) without an advancement, the societal growth cannot be spurred and if the society and its people remain redundant without any improvement, then any technological innovations go unnoticed.
‘Technological determinism’ - A societal theory
The very basic tenet of this theory is true (i.e.) technology is vital. As a fundamental aspect of our everyday lives, right from the everyday household that we use, for the electricity that is needed for the efficient running of these devices, technology matters. We clearly don’t live our lives, the way our grandparents lived in their days. Both the pattern of life and the way we lead it changes constantly along with the degree of sophistication. Ours is a life, which is both comfortable and highly technology-centered, because as ages move, so are the innovations (Hoch, MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1987). Though there were many failures on the numerous discoveries mankind has done, we also came across some potential gems that had the further possibility to be fine-tuned in order to be more helpful to the humankind. For instance, the discovery of the computer. The computer perceived by Charles Babbage is not the one we use today. Over the years, umpteen re-modifications have been done on the original in order to obtain it the way it is today. Hence, among all the factors that influence the society (say), political, economic, and cultural and so on, this technological factor will also be one. This factor is neutral and depends entirely on the way the society utilizes it. It can also be inherently political because of its far sightedness, as by making a society to adopt a technology, we are indirectly modifying the above said factors of the society, thereby changing its discernment about the world.
Hence, to summarize, we can say that the technological advancement is an intrinsic component of the technological determinism and with this comes the growth of the society. This growth as an overall factor can have both positive and negative impacts on the society. (human-kinetics, 2012). For example, The following bar-graph implicates the influence of technology on the society at various strata. Here the strata refer to the people of different age groups in the considered population of study. 85 people of different age groups were taken into account and the study found out that the usage of technology in the form of social networking sites, smart phones, chats, etc., has increased considerably and will continue to do so in the near future.
(The ECAR study of Undergraduate students and Information Technology, 2008, 2008)
Technological determinism as a theoretical concept
According to the management expert Peter Drucker, ‘There is nothing more practical than a Good theory’
Most often, an existing technology change either on its own accord or due to a scientific advancement. For example, the ever changing technologies in smart phones. As a theoretical concept, this ‘Technological determinism’ is a process of experimentation with many Trials and Errors, as every innovation doesn’t go the way, it was destined to be. In the view of our topic, the concept of Technological determinism has two interrelated aspects of it – the aspect of learning and the aspect of execution. Basically, it is curiosity which fuels discoveries and these discoveries in turn, kindle the conscious mind of a person. These breakthroughs, then reach the society by making its contact with the humans in the material, social and intellectual departments, thereby leading to the organization of the physical skills, simplifying the manpower and enhancing the conceptual skills of a person. By honing the theoretical knowledge, one unleashes the power of the human mind leading to other findings and innovations as well. Hence, obviously a natural succession from physical execution to mental understanding occurs, spurring the possibilities of a fresh invention. Thus, this is an inherent cyclic process. The ‘Technological determinism’ has been an ever-expanding concept on its own. We only need a proper framework to discover the underlying principles that govern these processes. The drawback is, as a concept, it only focuses on the scientific concepts that change our lives, but neglects the factor which polishes it and ensures that the advancement holds well in the forthcoming years also (Jacobs and Cleveland, 1999).
Social Processes and the Technological aspects
Primarily, any advancement must bring an enhancement to the society, at different levels. These innovations thus have infused modernization in the everyday lives of a person. That is, it had made the society to progress from a ‘traditional and conservative’ model to a ‘modernized’ model, with the basic underlying fact that a traditional society will evolve into a modernized one, by adopting more modern practices. During this process of transformation, the concept of modernization, takes under its aegis, the social variables associated with it. This process, while occurring should not be an implicit one. Rather, during the whole period of transformation, it should remain active adhering to the democratic principles. This is what Ulrich Beck calls as reflexive modernization (Jacobs and Cleveland, 1999). The important aspect that is to be noted here, that technology by itself does not create ripples in the society and shifts its projection. Rather, the humongous response to a technological advancement only shifts the base of a society. Hence, society itself creates the change it needs. Also, every technology cannot be used for a long time. At a certain period, it has to be worn out and a new one should replace it. As a result, a broad social change occurs. Like previously said, the example of cell phones can be considered here. The transformation of cell phones has mended the bridge across countries, thus reforming the l...