Does technology shape us, or do we shape technology?
This is a question of technological determinism, which is the idea that technology shapes human behavior. As such, the idea diminishes the concept of free will, and so most people in education reject it out of hand.
Toppling dominos by Enoch Lai is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0
“‘Technology isn’t important’, ‘pedagogy comes first’, ‘we should be talking about learning, not the technology’ are all common refrains in conferences and workshops…. [But] the suggestion that technology isn’t playing a significant role in how people are communicating, working, constructing knowledge and socialising is to ignore a major influencing factor in a complex equation” (Weller, 2011, p. 11).
If technology shapes us, is that always a bad thing?
In my opinion, it isn’t necessarily bad but I think it’s important to recognize that the shaping is happening. Melvin Kranzberg was one of the founders of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). He became somewhat well-known for his Laws of Technology. The first law speaks to the inherent goodness or badness in technology.
“‘Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.’ By that I mean that technology’s interaction with the social ecology is such that technical developments frequently have environmental, social, and human consequences that go far beyond the immediate purposes of the technical devices and practices themselves, and, indeed, the same technology can have quite different impacts when introduced into different context or under different circumstances” (Kranzberg, 1992, p. 100).
- See also: For an example in social media, see Veletsianos, G., and Kimmons, R. (2012) ‘Assumptions and Challenges of Open Scholarship’
An example: Effects of the Gutenberg press on education
John Naughton (2008) points to the Gutenberg press as a technology that changed pedagogy. Before this technology, children were taught orally. Education ended when the children were about 7 years old, the age at which most children become effective communicators themselves. Teaching changed with the new technology. That is, technology shaped us. Children were taught from printed Bibles, and education extended until children were about 12 to 14 years old, because print-based learning took longer.
References
Naughton, J. (2008) ‘Thanks, Gutenberg – but we’re too pressed for time to read’, The Observer, 27 January [Online]. Available at http://www.theguardian.com/ media/ 2008/ jan/ 27/ internet.pressandpublishing.
Kranzberg, M. (1992) ‘Introduction: Technological and Cultural Change — Past, Present, and Future’ in Cutcliffe, S., Goldman, S., Medina, M., and Sanmartin, J. (eds) (1992) New Worlds, New Technologies, New Issues, Pennsylvania, Lehigh University Press, pp. 100-103. Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=DDCHZKzdd0IC&vq=Kranzberg.