This blog post examines the relationship between technology and society, specifically exploring why technological determinism prevails.
Humans are often called social animals. Yet it’s difficult to imagine human life without technology. Thus, technology and society can be considered core elements of human existence. Because technology and society are so intimately connected to human life, it was only natural that people became interested in the relationship between these two factors. This interest became the catalyst for the relationship between technology and society to develop into an academic field and become a subject of discourse. Discussions on the relationship between technology and society have persisted because many agree these two elements exist on an equal plane. However, opinions diverge on one crucial point: which came first, technology or society? The question of whether society developed because technology existed, or whether technology developed because society existed, has created two opposing schools of thought and remains at the center of ongoing debate.
Two discourses have developed around this. One is technological determinism, which posits that technology is the cause of social change. The other is social constructivism, which argues that society is the cause of technological change. Paradoxically, these two opposing discourses have coexisted for so long precisely because the relationship between technology and society is bidirectional. Neither technological determinism nor social constructivism holds a dominant position; the center of gravity oscillates between technology and society. Therefore, it is inappropriate to claim that only one discourse applies at any given time. However, the center of gravity in our current era appears tilted toward technology. I will demonstrate this through several stages.
Before delving into the main discussion, I wish to clarify the meaning of technological determinism. Precisely defining technological determinism is a difficult problem, but in this paper, we will consider technological determinism divided into ‘determinism of technology over technology’ and ‘determinism of technology over society’. This is because the influence exerted by technology and society respectively will affect both technology and society. Therefore, if we omit either the influence technology exerts on technology itself or the influence technology exerts on society, the consideration cannot be complete. As mentioned earlier, if technological determinism currently holds sway, proving its validity requires demonstrating the validity of both ‘technological determinism regarding technology itself’ and ‘technological determinism regarding society.’ We will discuss ‘technological determinism regarding technology itself’ first, followed by ‘technological determinism regarding society.’
‘Technological determinism’ implies that society cannot be the cause of technological change. To prove this, we will examine four scenarios arising from the presence or absence of preliminary technology and social demand. By considering whether technology can develop in each case, we can identify the direct factors driving technological advancement. Furthermore, since technological change is a causally occurring event, we must avoid the error of thinking solely along a temporal axis. Therefore, in setting up the four cases above, we chose the terms ‘preliminary technology’ and ‘social demand’ to refer to the causes of technological change, and ‘resultant technology’ to refer to the outcome of the change.
First, consider a case where ‘preliminary technology’ exists for ‘resultant technology’, but there is no ‘social demand’. In this case, even if society does not adopt the ‘resulting technology’ and it disappears into history, the emergence of the ‘resulting technology’ itself is still possible. Second, a case where both ‘preliminary technology’ and ‘social demand’ exist. In this case, the ‘resulting technology’ emerges prominently in history with the full support of society. Third, there is a case where ‘preliminary technology’ for ‘resulting technology’ does not exist, but ‘social demand’ is present. In this case, because ‘preliminary technology’ is absent, ‘resulting technology’ cannot emerge despite the existence of ‘social demand’. The current situation where it is difficult to easily produce treatments for diseases like Ebola, which has recently become problematic, falls into this category. Finally, there is the case where neither ‘preparatory technology’ nor ‘social demand’ exists. Comparing this to the first case, the absence of ‘preparatory technology’ makes even the accidental emergence of ‘resulting technology’ impossible.
In all four cases, what enables the emergence of ‘resulting technology’ is the existence of ‘preparatory technology’, not ‘social demand’. Therefore, only technology can be the cause of technology; society cannot be the cause of technology. Instead, society plays the role of accepting technology, assigning value to it, and providing direction. The reason society sometimes appears to be the cause of technological change is that technology highly valued by society receives more support and can enter a path of rapid development. On the other hand, unlike the gradual emergence of technology discussed earlier, new technology can also suddenly appear on the historical stage. In such cases, society may appear to be the cause of technology because the ‘preparatory technology’ is not explicitly visible. However, even if ‘preparatory technology’ cannot directly cause the ‘resultant technology,’ the aggregate of ‘preparatory technologies’ can be the cause of the ‘resultant technology.’ Since people cannot grasp all ‘preparatory technologies,’ the new technology appears non-causal.
As examined thus far, in cases of gradual technological development, technology itself can be the cause. Furthermore, even when technology develops in leaps, the cause is not a single technology but rather the ecosystem technology has created; thus, the cause of technological development remains technology. Therefore, we can conclude that ‘technological determinism’ is valid.
‘Technological determinism regarding society’ requires more detailed elaboration. Because the relationship between technology and society is bidirectional, technological determinism and social constructivism do not dominate each other but maintain a dialectical relationship. In the past, humanity experienced periods where social constructivism was dominant and periods where technological determinism was dominant. However, the present is judged to be a period where technological determinism is dominant. To substantiate this claim, it is necessary to examine what understanding of technological determinism existed in each past period and compare it with the present. In this process, we can also examine how the objections to technological determinism that existed previously can be resolved in the present.
People began to take an interest in the relationship between technology and society when ‘history of technology’ began to establish itself as an academic discipline. However, the initial impetus for the emergence of early history of technology was to provide a discourse capable of addressing socially threatening technologies, such as the emergence of nuclear weapons during the Cold War era. Therefore, early history of technology researchers focused on developing a discourse that placed technology under the control of society. Herein lies one reason why technological determinism was challenged by social constructivism. According to technological determinism, technologies capable of threatening society could potentially come to the forefront of history, and supporters of social constructivism were wary of this.
However, since scholars of the history of technology generally held above-average favor toward technology, they were, by nature, people who studied the history of technology. Consequently, the emergence of discourse favoring technology over society was a natural progression. Technological determinists argued that technology takes precedence over society, citing compelling examples such as ‘the invention of the stirrup, which facilitated the emergence of the knightly class through the development of equestrian technology,’ ‘the invention of printing that drove the Renaissance,‘ and ‘the invention of the steam engine that led to the Industrial Revolution.’
Yet, in this process, technological determinism relinquished its lead to social constructivism for two reasons. First, rigorous social scientific verification revealed that the causal relationships in the technodeterminists’ examples were unclear, contrary to their intended claims. Regarding stirrups, counterarguments pointed out that the emergence of the knightly class was already underway independently of stirrups. Similarly, for printing, it was argued that the Renaissance was already socially primed to occur. Second, during technological advancement, instances emerged where certain technodeterminist theories were politically constructed. Presenting a specific technology as if it determines society creates the effect of making that technology seem unavoidable. Moore’s Law is considered a prime example of technodeterminism in modern times. As the electronic memory industry followed Moore’s Law and influenced society, it became regarded as a good example of technodeterminism. However, significant effort was expended behind the scenes to establish Moore’s Law as a law. Samsung Electronics proposed ‘Hwang’s Law,’ which shortened the timeframe of Moore’s Law to one year, and even demonstrated it over a certain period. Such artificial technological determinism has, in fact, lent strength to the argument that society determines technology.
To summarize, the basis for the era when social constructivism dominated over technological determinism was ‘warning against threatening technologies,’ ‘the incompleteness of technological determinism,‘ and ‘the emergence of artificial technological determinism.’ However, as previously argued, the period we are living in now sees technological determinism regaining dominance. The three reasons why technological determinism was inevitably overwhelmed by social constructivism in the past are now, conversely, acting as reasons why social constructivism is being overwhelmed by technological determinism. By revisiting these three reasons, we will conclude our argument that we are now passing through an era where technological determinism is dominant.
First, attempts to keep technology that could threaten society under societal control—a weakness technological determinism has had since its inception—can no longer be made as frequently as in the past. Of course, technology capable of threatening society still exists. Nuclear weapons and biochemical weapons can threaten humanity at any time, and the 2013 U.S. government surveillance scandal that caused significant upheaval suggests we can be placed under surveillance at any moment. Nevertheless, attempts to place technology under society’s control can no longer be actively pursued because our dependence on technology for daily life has become extremely high. Countless technologies permeate every aspect of human life. Among these are positive technologies: advancements in electrical engineering, communications, medicine, and mechanical engineering have already enriched human life through technology, making rejection of technology impossible. Society can no longer be placed above technology; it now directly receives technology’s influence.
Furthermore, technology is gradually compensating for the incompleteness of technological determinism. The historical issue with technological determinism stemmed from its reliance on examples from periods where technology and society’s influence were intertwined, even though technological determinism appeared dominant. Considering the bidirectional nature of technology and society, any example inevitably contains incompleteness and can always leave room for debate. However, technology’s current influence on society is greater than in the eras of stirrups, printing presses, or steam engines. Alongside this, the incompleteness of technological determinism is gradually diminishing. In other words, while the incompleteness of technological determinism remains an unavoidable element in the relationship between technology and society, its degree is decreasing.
Finally, while the political discourse not derived from technology’s inherent properties, as seen in earlier technological determinism, still persists, technology has now reached a level where it can develop discourse independently. Technology is progressively developing its own distinct logic. This signifies that artificially constructing technological determinism is becoming increasingly difficult. The case of Motorola, once a dominant company, failing to maintain its influence and being displaced by smartphones demonstrates that even with a politically solid position, technodeterminism cannot be generated. While society’s scope for intervening in technology is gradually diminishing, technology has reached a level where it can influence society and set standards for it. The 2014 Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, sparked by SNS, serves as a good example.
Thus far, we have examined the meaning of technological determinism in two parts. We have also discussed why the present era we live in favors technological determinism over social constructivism. In ‘Technological Determinism of Technology’, we showed that technology is the cause of technology. In ‘Technological Determinism of Society’, we confirmed that technology is overcoming the three arguments that previously supported the claim of social constructivism’s superiority over technological determinism: ‘wariness of threatening technology’, ‘the incompleteness of technological determinism’, and ‘the emergence of artificial technological determinism’. Synthesizing these results, it is correct to argue that human history has now entered an era where technological determinism is once again dominant.
However, it is crucial to note that the elements presented as problems or weaknesses of technological determinism from the perspective of social constructivism remain unresolved. Contemporary technological determinism demonstrates a tendency to mask these problems and weaknesses with its strengths. Now that society has reached a level where it is evaluated by the standards technology provides, attempts to place technology under societal influence have also become extremely difficult. While it is valid to view the era we currently live in as being under the discourse of technological determinism, we must remain vigilant to prevent this discourse from becoming absolutized, thereby avoiding situations where its problems or weaknesses negatively impact society.
