Technology as a Window on the World
(Text to Accompany the Talk)
I. Introduction
All of us use technology everyday. Each of us knows that the influence of technology on our life is profound. Technology is constantly amazing us with the tremendous things it can accomplish. It makes our life rich and full, as well as convenient and exciting. But, technology has a dark side. The history of mankind is replete with stories of how that technology was used to do horrible things to people. Technological advance is not always benign. Technology is changing our society and our social relations at a frightening pace. It is changing us psychologically and we must be prepared to confront all that this implies, both good and bad, for our future.
My talk today seeks to examine at how that technology is created; how it flourishes; and howit remainseven today a problematic element of our lives – providing us with both substantial benefits and many explicit costs.
Compared with the past, we can use the technology of today to get a clearer picture in real time of the world as it exists. We can better see ourselves in this world and more closely understand our place in the world. We can instantly interact with people around the world, taking part in what they experience, as they experience it. But, we can also be led into a false sense of complacency about our knowledge of the world.
We can confuse the immense potential of the Internet with our own ability to accomplish things. Like the rich man who possesses a large and beautiful library of books, but who never reads or understands such books, we too can be deceived into thinking that we hold such abundant knowledge and abilities simply by possessing an Internet connection. We can come to rely too heavily on the opinions expressed through the new information technology and social media and fail to adequately filter these opinions with our reasoning and good judgment. We can become lazy and by sheer neglect hand over our precious freedom of thought and expression to those who wish to move society in one direction or another. It is only by asking what one can do without the Internet that we can see how well one is progressing in one's education.
II. The Nature of Technology
What is the central defining feature of all technology? Technology is anything which improves our productive or consumptive capabilities, given our fixed resources. It may be a new invention or some new innovation. Perhaps it is a new method of production or even a new product which greatly expands our consumption possibilities. At times, new technology may simply be a better way of organizing production or consumption. The assembly line was a technological advance, as was "just in time" inventory control. Velcro strips were a simple but an effective way to replace shoestrings and similar attachments.
Technology can be new productive means or it can be new products altogether. In the not so distant past, man used fire as the sole means of light. This was later replaced by incandescent light, which finally gave way to the florescent light bulb. Today we have LED lights which are finding their way into every manner of use (although the original LED was invented in 1962 by Nick Holonyak a consulting scientist at General Electric).
Note however that the basic service need that each new technological advance filled was improvements in "lighting services". This need never changed. When surrounded by the dark we naturally needed light to see and technology has given us ever more useful and convenient ways of obtaining these lighting services. The different types of lighting were merely new and alternative ways of getting what we needed. The need wasn't new, but only the means of fulfilling that need. The means provided us with improvements. Note also how that the introduction of technology is crucially dependent on the prior development of other technology and its development. Thus, light bulbs required the technological advance of electricity – something which was not needed by gas fire lights in the 19th century. Technology builds on itself in rough jagged advances.
This simple example shows that it is improvements that characterizes technological progress. Moreover, it follows that to get continuous technologicaladvance we must make it extremely profitable to make such improvements. We must find ways to encourage people to make such improvements. The history of technical advance shows that it typically flows from three sources (1) pure intellectual curiosity; (2) government promotion and directive; and (3) competitive pressures. The last of these is the most important. Itis the market, self interest, and the profit motive that has led to the greatest improvements in human life. This will no doubt be the same in the future. Of course, we all become excited when we think of the great technical advances that await us in the future. How can these advances be ensured and hastened? That is a question of enormous importance. It is clear from the past that most advances follow from competition and self interest. This is something we must always understand and appreciate if we are to truly understand the process of technical advance.
This is not to say that government has no role in the promotion of technology. The major role which government has to play is to ensure a positive business environment through low taxes, less regulation, market-based rewards for risk-taking, enhancement of the competitiveness of schools, guaranteeingof property rights, and promotion of the harmonization and integration of technology. Naturally, the government must play a role in ensuring that technology does not create harmful externalities that society must ultimately bear and that individual firms and people may not fully appreciate. Also, there will always be large and valuable spinoffs of long run pure and applied research being done by publically funded government agencies such as the Defense Department and NASA.
III. Individual and Social Technology
All technology is integrated to other technology in some manner. It is impossible today to see any particular technology as an isolated phenomenon, since such technology requires other technology to build and maintain itself. For example, an electric toothbrush is something which we use by ourselves. But, to produce it requires an enormous amount of technology and to maintain it requires things like batteries and attachments that are quite technical as well. Nevertheless, these types of technological advancements do not need many people to increase their value to us. Indeed, by having many people buy electric toothbrushes, they became more affordable, but their value to us did not really change. This is not true of socially based technology. A cell phone is valuable to us because our friends and relatives have them also. If you were the only person with a cell phone it would be worthless to you. Money is like that also. We have money because we need it to exchange for products. If you were alone you would have no need for money and that colored paper in your pocket would become worthless to you. No need for a Facebook account if you are the last man on earth. Newspapers would be worthless as well, unless you like writing and reading your own articles everyday.
Social technology is only valuable when there is a society that fully embraces the technology. In fact, there is a critical user rate for all social technology that makes it valuable. Facebook or Twitter would not be valuable if it did not have millions of users. This makes the technology very fragile. A social technology that does not constantly stay competitive will soon be replaced by a new social media.
The speed at which this can happen is incredible. A multimillion dollar business based on social media can collapse in under a year if the conditions prove right. Moreover, one bad experience if shared by millions of people together can ruin a social technology's chances for the future.
Information technology is the best example of social technology, although not the only example. To inform is to communicate with others your ideas and news, so to speak. This naturally requires a means to accomplish this and these means become more valuable as the spread of communication widens. But, information comes in many forms and can be misleading, as well. The technological means of verifying the accuracy of the information you are receiving sometimes lags behind the technological means you have of disseminating the information. Suzy who is currently chatting you up on the internet says she is 24 years old 5' 7" inches and to confirm things she sends along a picture showing her in a bikini outside her home in Santa Monica, California. How do you know it is all real. Suzy could actually be a 60 year old bald, fat guy who lives in Newark, New Jersey and sells insurance for a living. If you don't know why some people do this then you really don't understand
the nature of social media and social technology today. You probably don't understand much about human nature either. This type of problem can be disastrous if you are trolling the Net for friends.
There is always the question if the government needs to play an important role in organizing and policing the social technology we use. Each day millions of private messages are texted using cell phones. Most of this is perfectly harmless, though much of it could be embarrassing for the people involved if it ever became public. But, why would it become public? Well, there are lots of reasons for this. Joe is driving his car and texting at the same time. He has an accident and the police suspect that the texting was a contributing factor. In court, the texting is brought out much to the embarrassment of Joe and his texting partner. Or, Joe is texting his friend and he leaves his cell phone at the coffee shop he was at. Whoever finds the cell phone now has Joe's personal information and Joe is at the mercy of this person. The same is true of laptops, flash drives, mp3 players, ipads, etc. How much sensitive information is being carried around by us each day? Secrets we keep in our heads and harmlessly pass through our minds are now locked in place digitally for all to see on a piece of technology that we find convenient. What about real secrets of national security or information vital to the country? How many times have these been lost by simply forgetting them or having them stolen?
We all feel pressure from this and react in a predictable way. We feel uncomfortable when we borrow someone's flash drive or find ourselves in possession of someone else's private communications. The computer and its peripherals have become an extension of the privacy we expect to enjoy ourselves. We feel this privacy is violated whenever someone is found rummaging through our personal communications. But, are these things really private? Do we have a right to privacy? Where do we draw the line on this privacy in a world of social technology? Taiwan's Constitution (in Article 12) guarantees the citizen's freedom of privacy to information. How are we to interpret this in a world buzzing with information all around us?
IV. Can Technology Make Us Collectively Worse Off?
We have noted that the central defining feature of technology is that it should improve our daily life. At least it should have a strong potential for making us better off. But, there are many examples of technology that in fact increase the possibility to do harm. The best example of this is atomic power. The harnessing of the power of the atom was first conceived and created by people desperately at war and under tremendous pressure to be first with a bomb. The US government knew that German scientists were hard at work attempting to build a functional atomic bomb and that if they were successful, no city would be safe and the war would be lost. The US government undertook the famous Manhattan Project where at many locations parts of an atomic bomb were constructed and finally put together and tested in New Mexico in 1945. The results of this was the utter destruction of 250,000 Japanese citizens in the summer of 1945. The Atomic Age was born and we have lived under the cloud of atomic war ever since. Today we still live under this cloud with North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan developing and testing nuclear weapons, which they see as a natural extension of their sovereignty. One of the original scientists who helped to create the atomic bomb was Richard Feynman who claimed a Buddhist monk once told him
–to each man is given a key that opens the gates of Heaven. That same key however opens the gates to Hell.
Technology can be used for immense good, but it can also be used for terrible evil. Social media and social technology offers us tremendous opportunities for the future.
But, we must realize that the same technology has a potential for great harm. We must be wise in the use of the new media and clear about the dangers that are inherent in its use.
How can the new social technology that we have grown to love and that occupies our attention so much during the day become a danger for us?
The most important issue is whether social media and social technology are changing us socially and psychologically in ways that are abnormal. In fact, we need to ask the question of whether the term "normal behavior" is changing due to the introduction of social media. Is it, for example, normal to spend 6-8 hours on a computer doing homework, reading, sending messages, and being entertained. Is the computer slowly becoming the object of interest and human beings being less the object of attention. Is it too convenient for us to change the focus of our interest in a moment or by the click of a mouse? When we confront a problem, do we simply give up if the answer to our problem is not immediate before us in a few clicks of a mouse? Do we come to rely too easily on the Internet to provide us with an answer rather than attempting to learn something, reason it out, and commit it to memory?
Is the fact that it is easy to steal answers from the Internet making the notion of stealing in general less objectionable? Are we increasingly viewing the world "as the Internet", rather than being imperfectly "represented by the Internet"?
These are hard questions to answer. In some ways we can look at our own life and see how that social technology (the Internet, cell phones, email, texting, smart phones, etc.) has changed our daily routine and our interaction with other people. We can ask how our lives would be affected if we did not have access to this technology. For many teachers, the idea that one would actually have to pick up a piece of chalk and open a textbook to teach a class is unthinkable in today's high tech environment. But, this is exactly what classes were like 20 years ago. Has education seen a major improvement over the last 20 years? Or, have we seen a gradual deterioration of grades, quality of work, and attitude among students and teachers. Are students and teachers much further ahead than they were 20 years ago? I suspect that most people would say no, but that doesn't make sense in a world of tremendous technological change. It doesn't make sense if we see technology as providing only positive enhancements to society. Once we consider the negative effects of social technology on the schools, perhaps we can understand why there is a mixed picture on progress.
The Internet is now being studied to see what effects it has on our daily life and well being. One study by Bessière et al. (2010) found that when people use the internet to study their own health problems, this can lead to higher depression. Whereas, if the internet is used to communicate more with family members during a health crisis, depression tends to be lower. Another study by Stepanakova et. al (2010) found that young people who browse the internet incessantly tend to be lonelier and have less feeling of satisfaction, although much depends on the way surveys are given. Yoo et.al (2004) found that children who suffer from attention deficit disorder tend to be more prone to internet addiction. They did not address the issue of whether the internet contributes to inattention or hyper-activity in children. Christakis (2010) wrote an interesting paper on "Internet addiction: A 21st Century Epidemic?". His conclusion bears repeating as it is a warning on the lack of understanding of internet addiction
In my opinion, the greatest concern facing this field of research is a general complacency toward internet addiction. In some cases, this complacency is born of ignorance. Too many parents are simply unaware of what their children are doing online and what risks it might pose. In the 20th century, commentators spoke of a digital divide. In those days, it existed along economic lines. That divide has narrowed, or even disappeared, but the 21stcentury digital divide separates parents from their children. In other cases, the complacency is born of skepticism. In much the same way that tobacco proponents pushed back on early research linking smoking to cancer, these skeptics are quick to point out limitations of existing research as a way of casting doubt on the entire field. There is no question that the field of internet addiction research is in its infancy and that the overall quality of existing data is fair to moderate at best, but that should not distract us or prevent us from taking what is an emerging problem seriously. (emphasis mine)