Socio-Tech: Technology Shaped by and Shaping Society

"Technology is the product of a complex interplay between its designers and the larger society in which it develops" - Robert Pool, author, 'Beyond Engineering' (An account of technology-oriented impacts written for the non-technical reader. Technical readers, it's for you as well).

Technological literacy teaches the virtues by which the society is meant to change. Influences - chiefly - are held responsible for these changes throughout the centuries. Witnesses to relations between historical eras and the respective dominant technologies are aplenty; there had been such occurrences. Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze Age, Industrial Age, Information Age - each is measured in terms of human expertise, especially the second last in the above list. The age witnessed a larger of the tech-drive. At present, we have re-invented from automobiles till communication modes; the world just turned smaller. It formed a fertile ground for globalisation; along came ideas for contraception, sanitation and newer life-sustaining processes. Being tech-savvy makes adapting to a changing atmosphere easier; the reality that the future will be different to exist has made humans embrace everything from Internet-based activities to genetic engineering and cloning.

While it's true that the society invents technology from the view of a technologically literate person, on the flip side, technology moulds the society. The old saying - We create the need - is somewhat true; it's a personal choice whether someone wants to adopt technology. People existed and maintained communication before the cell phone came out; that way, society becomes a victim to the result of the collective human decision: Technology is glam-easy life. Meeting someone's requirements make people flock around you.

So it's more of a curve that resembles the infinity symbol (a horizontal 8). The society determines the direction of technological development and vice-versa.

Going back the thesis of Robert Pool, we see many technological developments being influenced profoundly by many non-technical factors, its business implications, its complexity and the degree of social controls being the primary ones. Nuclear power is a result of the wartimes but under control; it's a strategic advantage in the Cold War. Among the direct negative results, we can mention the Three Mile Island accident and the Bhopal disaster. Choices regarding engineering designs or business decisions had thus given technology the chance to negatively affect the society. Pool here presents quite a few interesting arguments on the possibility of making some number of technologies inherently safe; the other ones have not been given a chance. Pool's theory holds the complexity of the systems in which the technologies operate responsible.

That brings us back to the old question - "The hen or the egg?"