Personal Connections in the Digital Age-Ch.2

In the second chapter of Nancy Baym’s book Personal Connections in the Digital Age, she introduces the different views people have historically had towards technology which lead to either a utopian or dystopian prediction for our culture. There are four different views she has brought up: technological determinism (technology is the one and only influence on us and society), social construction of technology (it is only us, humans, who shape society and technology), social shaping of technology (we influence each other) and domestication of technology (we get used to it; it becomes banal and gets taken for granted.) If technological determinism is completely valid, then we are not free beings. It's a bit of a depressing thought I think. This would mean that technology determines our every move. Just as people believe in scientific determinism (every cause has an effect) or religious determinism (God knows all, and has a plan for all of us); technological determinism would mean that we have no choice in our actions and that they are completely determined by the effect of technology on us. I do think we have made a free choice in the use of the medium and therefore we have an effect on technology just as much as it has an effect on us.  It is evident that something between social shaping theory and determinism theory is most applicable in our society. Our culture is heavily influenced by technology but we still have the power to choose in which direction it takes. We have taken the materials available to us and appropriated them to fit our needs.This is evident because technology is not used in the same way nor has the same degree of influence in every culture. Technology does not have a universal influence.

We live in a culture that is predominantly driven by technology which means it is incorporated into each of our daily activities, speech, writing and thinking. It is important not to think of it as a separate driver, but as a part of our culture. Still, we are drivers of it just as much as it drives us.   Baym uses the example of people blaming their relationship failures on the internet and concludes with this:

“The social concerns we voice with technology are concerns we would have even if there was no technology around. They are questions of what it means to be truly yourself, to have meaningful relationships with others and to be situated in a world of others who are very different than the people by whom we were raised.” (48)

Can we blame a rise in divorce solely on the facilitation of cheating by the internet? No. Someone who cheats via or as a result of the internet would have cheated regardless of its invention. I guess if we think about what we use to describe and differentiate between different cultures we would talk about language, alphabet, clothing and tools which are all technology; but we would also think about non technology oriented drivers such as religion, ideologies, signs and symbols, ways of thinking, rituals, traditions and so on which are still important influencers as well. I do feel overwhelmed by the boom of technology at every turn and it is right now the biggest influencer of our culture but those other factors of our culture influence it as well; which enforces the idea of technology as “soft determinism.” Influence on our culture flows in both directions from us and technology in the sense that we live in a society that takes what we are given and make it our own. If we only think of technology as the sole driver of our society we are in a sense throwing up our hands and handing over our freedom to corporations, government and the machines they generate. Is that something you want to do?