Technology

It is clear that technology's impact on society has been profound, and never more so than today. For many, including governments, its ability to contribute to wealth generation and economic development makes its encouragement a national priority. In the United Kingdom, a government White Paper published in 1986 asserted that “Survival and success will depend on designing, making, and selling goods and services that the customer wants at the time he wants and at a price he is prepared to pay; innovating to improve quality and efficiency; and maintaining an edge over all competition”.

Subsequently, a Technology Foresight Programme was begun to identify ways in which government resources might best be directed in the interests of the economy and to indicate areas of technology which might yield productive innovations. A series of technology foresight themes was drawn up under headings such as harnessing bio processes, materials synthesis and processing, computing and communications, cleaner world, modelling and impact, and control in management, the latter including security and anti-fraud technology.

Clearly, technology is seen as having a major role to play in improving the nation's economic competitiveness and quality of life. Similar dispositions towards, and expectations of, technology are to be found in many other countries.

The idea that the artefacts of technology are indices of progress is deeply entrenched in many societies. For most of the industrialized world a return to a situation without electricity and water services, telephones and televisions, refrigerators, washing-machines, cars, trains, aeroplanes, and sewage and waste disposal systems would be widely considered to be utterly retrograde. Equally, the vision of progress for many in poorer countries has been in terms of what, technologically, others have but they have not yet got. Either way, however, what is sometimes forgotten is that technology can lead a double life; it may conform to the intentions of its creators, but it can also yield unintended, sometimes unimagined, outcomes. Even with a clear vision of what type of society is being sought, technology can be an unpredictable ally. It also has the ability to usurp, or divert attention from, consideration of the outcome, the onward quest for technological development itself becoming the goal.

With the increased use of technology in production and service industries, a concern has grown that jobs will be destroyed and a vast army of unemployed will result. It is true that, over the past 200 years, many millions of manual workers have been replaced by machines, most dramatically, perhaps, in agriculture. Nearer the present, much factory work has also been automated. Machines saved on labour costs while increasing production, and were thus welcomed by factory owners. However, expansion of the service sector has provided alternative employment for many. Now, with the growing automation of service jobs, and technological developments such as computer diagnosis of illnesses, which put even the skilled at risk of redundancy, concerns have heightened about unemployment. Recent studies, however, provide little support for the view that technological change is the sole cause of unemployment. Rather, it is possible that technology can create more jobs than it destroys. However, a clear picture may be difficult to obtain for some time because firms take time to learn how to use new technology effectively and replace obsolete management structures. Nevertheless, jobs such as programmer, systems analyst, network manager, database architect, computer operator, and computer repair technician were unheard of only a short time ago and are now among the fastest growing. It does not follow, however, that those displaced from, for example, middle management and from lower-skilled jobs will necessarily be able to move quickly into the new growth areas of employment, or whether these latter will provide a sufficient number of jobs for a nation's workforce.

It is frequently claimed that the most potent agent of change on present-day society and the economy will prove to be information technology. The so-called digital revolution whereby information—whether text, sound, or video—can be converted into, and from, binary digits (bits) and transmitted over global networks is believed to be likely to transform industries such as banking, telecommunications, and publishing. Advances in light-wave communications technology based on optical fibres have vastly increased the volume and speed of information transmission. The development of flat-panel displays has allowed the computer mobility from the desk. Together these have contributed to the integration of computer and communications technology which, for the user, transcends space and makes information available on demand.

As well as rich opportunities, such a major social change presents severe challenges. One is how to avoid the creation of a divided society of information “haves” and “have nots”. This is both a national and an international problem. Others relate to ownership and security of information: cyberspace is a new frontier where existing legal principles and practice are having to be rethought. Yet again, there are moral issues to be faced about the kinds of information which should be openly available to users of the Internet.

It is understandable, given the complex ways in which technology interacts with society and with the lives of individuals, that perceptions of it should be widely divergent and influenced strongly by the nature of personal experiences. Technophobes with respect to military technology may be technophiles when it comes to medical technology. In general, public understanding of the nature of technology is not well developed, and there is widespread recognition, globally, of the need for a greater degree of “technological literacy” among citizens. The inclusion of technology as a subject in the curriculum of general education of both primary and secondary schoolchildren is a recent development in many countries intended to improve the understanding and the practice of technology.