A summary of:
Neil Postman: Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change. Presented at: The New Technologies together with the Human Person: Communicating the Faith inwards the New Millennium. Denver, Colorado, March 27, 1998.
Postman makes five real of import points well-nigh the nature of technological change, which are worth bearing inwards hear if one's aim is to brand such changes. It besides helps us reverberate upon how nosotros receive got been changed.
1) The offset is similar to Newton's Third Law of Motion, that for every activity at that topographic point is an equal together with contrary reaction. Well, perchance non equal inwards this case; but the indicate is that applied scientific discipline is a trade-off, together with perchance aptly described yesteryear Postman as "a Faustian bargain". "Technology," he says, "giveth together with applied scientific discipline taketh away." Consider things similar some of our favorite labor/time-saving technologies - the vacuum cleaner, the microwave oven, the dishwasher. I'll accept each inwards turn.
The Vacuum Cleaner: a device advertised since the 1950s as something that makes women’s piece of work easier, relieving them from the burdens of taking the carpets exterior together with beating the dust out of them. Whereas before, this was commonly a two-person job, instantly cheers to the vacuum cleaner, the adult woman should hold out able to practise this on her own. The reality of this applied scientific discipline inwards the abode is that, yes, the deed of cleaning the carpets was made easier, but this only raised the expectations for women’s responsibilities around the house. And the vacuum cleaner was only ane inwards a make of technologies aimed at women around this fourth dimension ostensibly to brand doing housework easier. As this tendency continued through the decades, the effect of bringing these devices into the abode was to brand private tasks easier, but to brand the labor of doing housework on the whole much bigger for women, i.e. their remit expanded to run across growing expectations well-nigh their powerfulness to perform tasks inwards less time. The set out of things a modern homemaker is instantly single-handedly responsible for far exceeds that of the pre-technological home, together with these added pressures receive got been linked to increased rates of anxiety for the modern woman.
The Microwave Oven: besides designed to salve us time. Not only that, but it removes the demand for expertise inwards the kitchen. Anyone tin sack gear upwardly their ain food. But field people tin sack instantly gear upwardly their ain meals, they cannot practise together with so at the same time. This agency that meals are no longer ready at the same fourth dimension for all. People start to instruct used to the notion of eating meals alone, when their ain plate is ready. It sets the phase for families to swallow separately, on trays inwards front end of the television; rather than sitting downwards together to swallow a repast together with talk. Of class the microwave is non to blame for this tendency all yesteryear itself. But the indicate is, field the microwave makes it easier to estrus upwardly meals, it besides makes it easier for us to forgo the of import social ritual of eating together, thus potentially weakening household unit of measurement bonds.
The Dishwasher: I receive got a similar critique of the dishwasher. Or it's a blend of the ii inwards a higher identify critiques. That it makes the labor of washing the dishes a single-person job, thus removing opportunities for give-and-take together with teamwork that was previously provided yesteryear dishwashing - ane individual washing, ane drying. Now ane individual chucks the dishes inwards the dishwasher, together with give-and-take demand non occur at whatever point.
The thing Postman wants us to accept away from this indicate is that, field nosotros tend to ask, 'What volition applied scientific discipline do?', it is as of import to ask, 'What volition applied scientific discipline undo?'
2) Postman's minute indicate is that "the advantages together with disadvantages of novel applied scientific discipline are never distributed evenly amidst the population." There are, inwards his words, winners together with losers. The winners tend to hold out those whose concern and/or lifestyle is most closely aligned amongst the values of technology, e.g. people who rely on information, speed, etc.. The losers are those who would never receive got asked for that applied scientific discipline inwards the offset place, but of class no ane would receive got asked them their see (because they demand to hold out converted anyway, surely).
Postman asks: "But to what extent has calculator applied scientific discipline been an wages to the masses of people? To steel workers, vegetable shop owners, automobile mechanics, musicians, bakers, bricklayers, dentists, yes, theologians, together with most of the balance into whose lives the calculator instantly intrudes? These people receive got had their private matters made to a greater extent than accessible to powerful institutions. They are to a greater extent than easily tracked together with controlled; they are subjected to to a greater extent than examinations, together with are increasingly mystified yesteryear the decisions made well-nigh them. They are to a greater extent than than ever reduced to mere numerical objects. They are beingness buried yesteryear junk mail. They are tardily targets for advertising agencies together with political institutions."
I think inwards many ways this is no dissimilar from Westernization/Colonization - at that topographic point are winners together with losers inwards that classic game. But the savages demand to hold out civilized, no? They'll give cheers us later.
Because of this, Postman suggests nosotros ought to interrogation the motives of those that enthusiastically promote diverse technologies - non because they are evil, but because they volition win; together with they may non necessarily hold out thinking of how others mightiness lose.
3) The tertiary indicate is: "To a individual amongst a pencil, everything looks similar a sentence. To a individual amongst a TV camera, everything looks similar an image. To a individual amongst a computer, everything looks similar data."
And the of import indicate for me is that the cyberspace changes us. Carr says: "The most revolutionary lawsuit of the expansion of the Internet's power, scope, together with usefulness may non hold out that computers volition start to think similar us but that nosotros volition come upwardly to think similar computers. Our consciousness volition sparse our, flatten, as our minds are trained, link yesteryear link, to 'DO THIS amongst what you lot detect HERE together with popular off THERE amongst the result.' The artificial tidings we're creating may plow out to hold out our own" (Carr, 2008).
4) The indicate dot is: "Technological modify is non additive; it is ecological." This means, simply, that adding a applied scientific discipline into an environs changes that environs inwards a to a greater extent than complicated way than it beingness but environs + technology. Of course, this is what makes the consequences of technological evolution together with so hard to predict. One tin sack never hold out sure of the unintended consequences of their evolution - thus the word, 'unintended'. But that does non absolve our responsibility! We must endeavour the best nosotros tin sack to empathize those environments nosotros are designing for, as good as those nosotros are non but may inwards plow popular off influenced yesteryear the technology, together with endeavour to figure out how the add-on of a given applied scientific discipline volition modify those environments.
This, I suppose, is run of the blueprint ethnographic mission.
5) And finally, Postman argues that, "media tend to popular off mythic," inwards the same feel he wrote well-nigh the mythologization of tv inwards his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. This is to state that nosotros "[tend] to sparse of our technological creations as if they were God-given, as if they were a run of the natural club of things."
I think this is some other way of maxim what Lanier warned about, which was Lock In. That nosotros popular off unable to see whatever other possibility for the Internet, because it is starting to experience similar this is precisely how it e'er should receive got been. This is The Internet.
I besides think this is worrying: nosotros tend non to interrogation the holler for of ubiquitous computing, which is basically that applied scientific discipline should pervade our lives to such an extent that nosotros no longer recognize it as such. Essentially UbiComp aims for this mythologization... together with demand nosotros enquire why? Because those who brand that applied scientific discipline volition practise goodness from its proliferation. But again, who loses inwards this scenario?
Postman leaves us amongst this wise advice:
"What I am maxim is that our enthusiasm for applied scientific discipline tin sack plow into a shape of idolatry together with our belief inwards its beneficence tin sack hold out a faux absolute. The best way to see applied scientific discipline is as a foreign intruder, to retrieve that applied scientific discipline is non run of God's programme but a production of human inventiveness together with hubris, together with that its capacity for goodness or evil rests solely on human awareness of what it does for us together with to us."
0 comments
Post a Comment