Technological determinism and it's influence on society #edcmooc

Another important aspect of technology is Technological determinism. One of the major topics that MOOC present  is  web essay “ Technological determinism” by Daniel Chandler. He affirms that the theory of technological determinism "is the most popular and influential theory of the relationship between technology and society". So this theory postulates that technology is the force that shapes the society in which we live.

It’s too difficult to overestimate the influence of process improvement. Technology is moving so fast that it is hard to keep up with. Not only the computers but the different illegal things are growing with it.  The impact of is technological determinism is manifesting on all aspects of life. There are some kinds of determinism, such as: biological (or genetic), linguistic, environmental and technological.

 The technological factor is determinative in development of all spheres of live. Moreover it has independent and immanent nature of being. There are three postulates of technological determinism:

1.   The technique has the "autonomy of development"
2.   The development of technology is understood as progress
3.    The development of technology is emergent

According to this, technology basically controls a large sphere of society and therefore determines a good deal of what it embodies. It also includes the whole of our material culture, not only tools, instruments and machines.

Technology is often seen as a whole which is more than sum of parts, or various manifestations.   (D.Chandler)                                    

 Technological determinism can be perceived in two different ways, hard or soft. The  hard determinist considers technological advancement as an independent faction of society.  Technology creates powerful regulation within society and society stripped of free will is forced to conform to the needs of technology. The soft determinism  considers the  principles more loosely viewing the interaction between technology and social circumstances by acknowledging the guiding force of technology while also regarding society's responsibility in the final outcome of a situation.

Another feature of  determinism is autonomous: technology develops autonomously and plays a principal role in the development of society . This progress is inevitable, unavoidable and irreversible. We use machines and tools in our dealy lives. It is too difficult image our live without this.  Technology shapes our life just as we shape technology. People always make choice which technology they use and how they deal with it.

Obviously, that aspect of our culture has changed – technological determinists would say that technology has changed our society (something out of reach, out of our control).

People choose technology, but sometimes don't fully understand it. As result there are countless of useless things that no one want. So we should not trust development and social evolution to the theories of technological determinism because the consequence may be change for the worse, instead of improvement. The theorist Jacques Ellul said “thecnical development is neither good, bad, nor neutral.” That is way technological determinism cannot exist without the strict regulation. For instance, the development of weapons has done the technological progress negative because weapons (especially nuclear)  are not used for peaceful goals. Revolution, warfare cause the death, thus causing society to digress.

Thus, the notion of technological determinism isn’t flexible enough. Technological determinism creates a model to understand how technology cause social change, but when with additions of complex realisms of society, especially the developing countries determinism does not fully explain the relationship between society and technology.