Beyond Technology: The intersection between society, technology, and design
How we shape our technology, and our technology shape us
New technological concepts emerge at such a frenetic pace that they are impossible to predict. Not long ago, we were talking about Tesla’s electric car, Web3, or the GPT-3 idea, which improved artificial intelligence. We’re now debating the Metaverse.
When we discuss futuristic technological concepts and ideas, it seems to be quite fascinating. This will not come to an end since we live at the center of human utopia and ambition.
So far, we are looking at a separate object with a distant relationship between society and technology, which I will try to investigate in this article from the larger perspective of computer science and social science. Since the dawn of modern technology, our lifestyles have been changed by it.
Human’s Inventions Acceleration
The development of innovations cannot be isolated from the advancement of previous inventions. Consider this: the paper was developed in China around the 2nd century, a printing press around 1200, and the Gutenberg press, which began the rise of literacy, was discovered around 1440. Following then, knowledge and ideas spread throughout the world. It took 13 centuries from the development of paper to be able to publish it as a printed book, forever altering human access to information.
Let’s look back at the history of digital technology. In 1939, a computer was created, and some people took advantage of this technological advancement. Shannon and Turing used computers to play chess, while scientists such as Von Neumann used computers to create mathematics and military technologies. Then on to the significant invention of the internet in 1983. This is insane. We just need 44 years to accomplish this level of innovation. Consider the history of printed books.
Raymond Kurzweil, an MIT computer scientist, futurist, and entrepreneur, stated that technology developments are exponential when plotted on a historical graph. Historically, innovation has accelerated as a function of time. In other words, the period spent between key technical advancements continues to shorten.
The Law of Accelerated Returns, as explained by Kurzweil, states that more complex life forms have evolved exponentially faster, with shorter and shorter intervals between the appearance of fundamentally new life forms. In numerous fields, human intellect levels have been created in a certain method to accomplish an effective way of solving a problem. This trend will lead to a huge rise in technology in the twenty-first century, which will change how we live, frame, and get information.
Society shapes our Technology
As we described in the last part, the innovation was inspired by societal problems that arise in everyday life. Technology assists us in overcoming obstacles that limit what we can do. According to social determinism, technology is created and changed in response to societal wants and needs.
Some social science fields encourage us to develop technological inventions to solve social problems that arise from time to time.
Technology shapes our Society
Then there are those humanities philosophers that take a different approach to this topic, like technological determinism, which argues that technology is the source of social change, shaping individuals and their society.
Edmund Carpenter’s anthropological research on the impact of technology on our social life today is clear. He arrived at the Papua and New Guinea border in 1960. When he attempted to snap a polaroid picture of a local person and gave it to them, the feedback from them clearly tells that the media and technology played a big role.
The photo shows that the guy with the hat is suddenly self-conscious about his hat. He hesitantly removes it, uncomfortably replaces it, and ultimately stands uncomfortably with his cap off, gazing at the picture.
And there’s the guy who just spent 20 minutes staring at his picture.
Carpenter refers to their emotions as “terror of self-awareness,” as indicated by “uncontrolled stomach trembling.” He defines the effect’s depths as “instant alienation,” suggesting that it “created a new identity: the private individual.” He said that Polaroid and other recording media produced a scenario in which “for the first time, each individual saw himself and his environment clearly, and he viewed them as separable.”
He returned to those villages after 35 years and instantly realized he didn’t recognize the place. Houses had been reconstructed in a new manner. They had been changed from tribal beings into disconnected individuals, lonely, frustrated, and no longer at home — anywhere.
His point is that we live in a world that is completely dominated by technology. But do we really get how they influence us? We frequently think of them as wonderful luxuries, wonderful conveniences, necessary requirements, or sources of interesting activities. But how do they influence us?
Mutual Shaping Between Society and Technology
To understand the interaction between these two fields, society and technology, we must look at both as a whole. We need to identify the connection while also considering the larger picture. Technology is growing as a result of societal problems but also has affected society.
We shape our tools, and our tools shape us.
— Marshall McLuhan, Philosopher and Communication theorist
It encourages a mutual shaping between technology and society, which collaborates to encourage change and shape one another collectively. It is critical to acknowledge the influence of the social and technological context of development on innovation choices.
Michael Wesch’s Barel Model can be used as an example to examine the impact of technology on society and vice versa. I came up with the concept of including a design field as a tool that helps connect these two sides.
With the mutual shaping theory that was talked about in the previous section, a society is a big part of the change that happens in a lot of different ways.
- Infrastructure (Technology and Engineering), in which technologies are used as tools to help us address day-to-day problems.
- Social Structure (Family, Relations, Politics, and Economy), through which we connect, collaborate, and interact.
- Superstructure (Ideas, Ideals, Values, and Belief), where we may engage in a variety of cultural transformations that result in new fundamental values and beliefs.
When society pushes infrastructure to make a technological improvement, that can affect the other parts above it, like how we build relationships around us, how technology itself can be used as a political tool, and furthermore, how technology can influence the concept and idea of human civilization. And it will come back to society itself, influencing our behavior, cognition, and culture.
Humans as a part of society are complex entities that can influence our infrastructure side. To build technology and take back technology that will change our society, we need to be open-minded and willing to work with people from different fields.
We might living in this situation. Not by rejecting technology, but by perceiving its consequences.
— Martin Heidegger, Philosopher
Design positioning at this intersection
The design will be at the crossroads of society and technology, examining how social issues arise in society and linking them with innovations to help them solve the problems.
Many of these problems are ill-defined; it is unclear what the problem is and what a solution to the problem would imply. People frequently change their behavior or behave differently as a consequence of widespread societal concerns.
Design is an activity that is subject to rational scrutiny but in which creativity is considered to play an important role as well.
- The rational part of the design is asking questions about societal problems, then seeking the root of the problem and developing questions to make a decision among the numerous solution choices that have been created to make the best decision for society.
- The creative aspect of the design is exploring as many ideas as possible that may be used to solve societal problems.
The design has an essential role as a method for translating social problems. Designers may make more strategic and reasonable decisions by integrating behavioral and cultural data. Following that, they will attempt to further explore the idea, which may be a solution to the social problem. They will transform it as a technical requirement, allowing engineers to apply it as a solution that has an influence on social life.
Design is thought of as a decision-making process controlled by practical rationality concerns.
Back to today’s frenetic speed of modern technology, which will have a significant effect on our society in the near future. With the development of Metaverse, AI, Web3, and other technologies in the near future there is a lot of debate over whether our society is ready for this, one must know:
It’s important to consider how this concept will influence our interactions with technology as well as our psychology, behavior, and the economy. Let’s give it some thought!
Reference
Larson, E.J. (2021). The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do. Belknapp Press of Harvard University Press.
Carpenter, E. (1973). Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me. Holt, Reinhart & Wilson.
Zalta, E.N., Nodelmen, U., Allen, C., Ardenson, R.L. (2018). Philosophy of Technology. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Wesch, M. (2018). The Art of Being Human: A Textbox for Cultural Anthropology. New Prairie Press.
Pittinsky, T.L. (2019). Science, Technology, and Society: New Perspectives and Directions. Cambridge University Press.
Harari, N.Y. (2015). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Vintage
