Society's role in shaping our technological future.
Facebook, Twitter, smart phones, tablets, wifi – the list of new tools and technologies in the 21st century seems endless. However it is not merely platforms and devices that can be considered ‘new media’. A comprehensive definition also incorporates the social arrangements and contexts of our engagement with technology, and how they are incorporated into institutions, laws and society (Flew, 2014).
With technology growing increasingly entangled, there is a tendency of the media and government to argue technologies are causal agents: directly impacting society and leaving us over-stimulated and permanently effected. However is it true to say society is hopelessly devoted to new invasive technologies? Or is our relationship with new media a little more complex?
The idea that technology can change and control us is referred to as technological determinism and has appeared throughout history at various points of technological advancement. Even Socrates decried the invention of the alphabet and written word as a threat to the oral tradition of Greek society (c 370 BCE).
Common examples of ongoing claims about technological determinism include:
Atlantic writer Nick Carr (2008) who argued that Google was shortening his attention span and making him stupid
That people will lose capacity for ‘deep reading’ and critical reflection as internet encourages rapid sampling of small bits of info (eg YouTube and Twitter): Nick Carr (2010)
That some video games are making young people increasingly violent eg correlations drawn when violent films or games were found in Martin Bryant (of the Port Arthur massacre) and other serial killers’ homes.
Nancy Baym, in her work Personal Connections in the Digital Age, argues these claims and similar are merely fuelled by moral panic that commonly occurs when “anxieties about issues are misplaced onto the use of new technology that is not yet understood”. An example is the common claim that more accessible porn and sexual content in television and advertising is causing the sexualisation of children and leads to greater gender inequality (Rush and La Nauze, 2006). However this is simply untrue - women experience higher levels of equality in 2014 then ever before, and there is currently the lowest rates of sexual crime in Australia’s history (McNair, 2013).
Moral panics about technological determinism are dangerous because they treat their subjects as susceptible to new technology and don’t take into account social contexts, new media uses and consumer experiences and interpretations (Gauntlett, 1998).
Aside from the inaccuracy of moral panics it is also clear that in some cases we positively influence technology, by developing or altering products and devices to suit our needs. A classic example of this is the evolution of smartphones. Mobile phones were initially designed as merely communication devices, but now they fuel entertainment, participation and the construction of self-identity. A camera has even been incorporated on the front of all smartphones to assist with taking ‘selfies’ and video conferencing/‘Facetiming’. They allow us to be on social media anytime, anywhere, and accelerate existing trends such as growing participation in online communities.
However, it would be hard to deny, mobiles also encourage us to engage in constant phone checking and status updating that would not otherwise be possible. It is clear that technology allows us certain affordances in relation our new media usage, which society takes advantage of in shaping social, and often economic, needs (Baym, 2010).
As Douglas so eloquently put it in his 2004 work, “Machines don’t make history themselves, but they can help make different kinds of histories and different kinds of people” (at 21).
Baym, Nancy. 2010. “Ch 2: Making New Media Make Sense.” In Personal Connections in the Digital Age, 22-45. Cambridge MA: Polity Press
Flew, Terry. 2014. “Ch 1: Introduction to New Media.” In New Media. 4th ed, 1 - 17 Melbourne: Oxford University Press
Gauntlett, David. (1998) “Ten Things Wrong with the ‘Effects Model’,” in R. Dickinson, R. Harindranath and O. Linne (eds) Approaches to Audiences: A Reader, London: Arnold, pp. 120-145.
McNair, Brian. (2013) Chapter 5: ‘What Has Pornography Ever Done for Us?: The Argument from Evidence’, in Porno? Chic! How Pornography Changed the World and Made it a Better Place, London: Routledge. pp. 79-90.
Rush, Emma and La Nauze, Andrea. (2006) Corporate Paedophilia Report: Sexualisation of children in Australia. The Australia Institute. Accessed March 9, 2014. http://www.tai.org.au/documents/dp_fulltext/DP90.pdf
Sauter, Theresa. February 27, 2014a. “Week 1 – Introduction: What are “New” Media and where did they come from?” Accessed March 1, 2014.http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/
Sauter, Theresa, March 6, 2014b. “Week 2 – New Media and Society, New Media and Identity.” Accessed March 9, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/
