Technology Week 7 - 10 PDF

Week 7: Community in the Network Society (On Final) Why Study Community in the Network Society? - Communities act as reference groups - We find meaning about our sense of self through interactions with other people - Cooley: looking glass self - you don't have an understanding of yo...

Week 7: Community in the Network Society (On Final) Why Study Community in the Network Society? - Communities act as reference groups - We find meaning about our sense of self through interactions with other people - Cooley: looking glass self - you don't have an understanding of yourself, aside from what people say to you and society proves feedback to you - Reference groups: people against whom individuals evaluate their own situation or conduct - They provide us with 2 things - serve a normative function (provide us with standards, behaviours and beliefs “what should your values and norms be”) and serve a comparison function (evaluate ourselves by looking at others. We use them as a reference to see how we measure up in areas like skills, achievements, or behavior and helps us understand where we stand, set goals, or feel a sense of belonging in a group) - Digital technologies challenge our traditional notions of community as being defined by physical boundaries - Technology allows us to develop communities across time & space - Main question: How does technology impact the community? - Ex: Online echo chambers. The Internet provides opportunities for encountering a wide range of communities and people’s perspectives, but algorithms limit our view of reality. What are some social impacts? What is Community? - Different perspectives on community: - 1. Traditionally studied in terms of geography - 2. Smaller social units that come together because of shared interests - 3. Broad definitions include all of society as community - Tönnies distinguished between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft relationships when studying communities Gemeinschaft: “community”; a cohesive social entity united by a pre-existing bond (e.g., family ties) - Tonnies says there is 3 factors of Gem:  - 1: people establish strong and meaningful bonds with each other - 2: limited social networks - 3: people have high levels of trust and support among members of the group - People are closely connected, have limited social networks, and high levels of trust and support among members - Often seen as a utopian form of society - This scene of Bilbo’s birthday party (in The Fellowship of the Ring) is representative of the idyllic Gemeinschaft form of community life. Gesellschaft: “society” or “association”; loose connections through bonds that are often goal-oriented (e.g., nation-state) - People are bound together by interdependence and they can relate to one another because of their common goal - Tonnie says that there is becoming more Gesell relationships than Gem - People are loosely connected, have little investment in bonds, and live in large communities where not everyone knows each other - Often seen as an inferior form of society - Tonnie says that both of these relationships can co-exist and blend together - This Costco checkout line exemplifies people's loose, goal-oriented relationships with one another in Gesellschaft communities. Theories of Community and Technology - Wellman distinguished between three theoretical views of community life brought about by industrialization and technology: - Has used the term “the community question” to summarize the debate around how community has changed over time 1) Community-lost - Industrialization → decline in community: - Fewer opportunities to socialize - Long work hours leave little time for other activities - New modes of transportation and communication support distant interactions, remove people from their immediate vicinities - Turkle contrasts two key concepts:  - When people were together, pre tech, people were together and communicating (these tech remove us for our immediate presence) - Alone together: individuals together, but each on their own device - Togetherness: people enjoying each others’ company 2) Community-saved - Friendship and family networks continue to dominate as forms of social organization - Community is healthy and thriving - Despite social changes, still evidence to support the idea of “community-saved” - Close-knit networks increase connectivity - Ex: Apps, like nextdoor, are advertised as helping people strengthen their connection to their local community. Community-saved!? Do you use such apps? Similar apps? Impact on community life? 3) Community-liberated - Community life has undergone radical transformations (it has not been lost, just changed) - Ex: online communities - Communities continue to exist in society but with new dimensions: people socialize outside of local neighbourhoods & family ties - Cars, telephones, email, and social media all facilitate the formation of these new social structures - Emphasis is placed on establishing and maintaining unbounded networks - Ex: Networks Unbound. If you have a specific, niche interest, technology can facilitate connections to others with mutual interests across the globe. Technology frees us from limited local choices. Revising Community in the Internet Era Trends in Community, Networks, and Communication - There are two trends emerging in how the Internet has affected community, social networks and communication: 1. The “rich get richer” hypothesis 2. Networked individualism 1) “Rich Get Richer” - The benefits of the internet are not equally distributed - they favour those who are already socially active and who already have strong ties with people - Internet strengthens and expands the networks of those already well-connected - Internet makes it easier to increase and maintain large networks - Social media sites allow users to create strong bonds and expand their social and work networks - Social networking builds two types of social capital: - Bonding social capital: connections with strong ties; those individuals with whom one shares an intimate bond - Bridging social capital: linkages with weak ties; people one associates with but who are not close (ex: Linkedin) 2) Networked Individualism - Move from mechanical to organic solidarity – connected through interdependence - The argument is based on Durkheim’s notions of: - Mechanical solidarity: based on shared understandings and collective conscious (connected because they share similar beliefs, values, and lifestyles)  - Organic solidarity: based on specialized social roles and multiple partial networks (similar to Gesel relationships) (connected because they have different roles and depend on each other, like in a complex society where everyone has a specialized job) - “Triple Revolution” leading to networked individualism: 1. Shift from close-knit groups to networks 2. Rise of personalized Internet 3. Widespread adoption of mobile devices The Hacker Spirit - The hacker subculture presents us with a case study on “deviant” virtual communities. We will explore the development of an alternative mindset that is fostered within the community. - Also consider: How do online communities foster alternative belief systems? Hacking Hackers - A participant-observation and in-depth interview study on computer hackers - To understand social reality, go to the people! - “In order to appreciate the perspective of those we attempt to understand, it is essential that we avoid imposing outside order upon the data. Instead, we should seek to ‘find and analyse the categories that are meaningful to the participants’ and look to them to find answers regarding the meaning of their actions” (Letkemann 1973:9). Hackers’ Perception of “Hacker” - Public perception at odds with how hackers see themselves  - Hacker: an individual who passionately and creatively works towards finding a solution to an given problem - Major Tenet: one should strive to acquire an ever greater understanding of how things work Tenets of the Hacker Perspective 1) Higher understanding requires an unorthodox approach - Hacker: someone who thinks outside of the box 2) Hacking involves hard work - “Being a hacker is lots of fun, but it's a kind of fun that takes lots of effort” 3) Hacking requires a “learn for yourself” approach - learn by doing - “To be a hacker, I had to learn how to learn… it all comes down to a willingness to learn new things” 4) Mistrust Authority - “I think the hacker mindset is to challenge everything. Always push the button that says ‘do not push’, always try the door to see if it locked, always challenge authority, especially when it claims to be acting in your best interests” 5) Share your knowledge and information with others 6) All information should be free 7) You’re evaluated based on what you know and your desire to learn - “In grade school, I was teased for my lack of style and grace, but this is a new era, and in my world, you’ll be taunted endlessly for your lack of intelligence” Challenging Public Perception - An “elite” perspective? Who decides? - The hacker community has largely lost control of the definition of what it means to be a hacker - Freedom of information over ownership of information, creativity over conventionality, hard work and self-direction over indolence, intellectualism over looks and style, unorthodoxy over conformity are highly valued and very noble pursuits within the hacker subculture. Maintaining a Belief System - Belief: any proposition thought to be true, regardless of whether it is true - How do online communities maintain and reinforce a belief system?  1. Secondary socialization approximating the conditions of primary socialization (create close, isolated environments; members mainly interact with each other) 2. Suppressing cognitive dissonance (They reduce doubts by suppressing conflicts between actions and beliefs) 3. Subcultural supports and the echo chamber (community supports each other like an echo chamber) 4. Outsider persecution (the external threat) (They unite members by focusing on outside threats or feeling persecuted by others) - Members of the QAnon conspiracy theory group believe that Donald Trump will usher in “The Storm” and remove the “deep state” from power. Week 8: Technology-Mediated Social Relationships Why Study Technology-Mediated Social Relationships - Increasingly using technology to build and sustain relationships – pluses & minuses - Spending less time interacting face-to-face and more time via digital devices - Sharkey (2024): from 2003-2022, average time spent at home increased by 1 hour 39 minutes - Murphy (currently the sergeant general of the USA) (he declared a loneliness epidemic) (2023): 50% of Americans have 3 or fewer close friends; 27% in 1990 - As a result of this, the depth of our friendships is lacking - Feelings of loneliness worsened by online social comparison, digital envy, & FOMO - The more time that we spend online, the less satisfied we are in our lives (pandemic was the peak of this situation) - Forming relationships with AI & tech Civil Inattention - Civil inattention: the practice of acknowledging strangers in close proximity while displaying disinterestedness in them (Goffman, 1963) - Patterns of public interaction with strangers; we can: 1. Stare openly & fixedly at one another (meant for animals and freaks) 2. Ignore one another (treating them like an object - not even worthy of your attention)  3. Glance at one another & quickly avert our gaze (+ usually non-verbal interaction) (Acknowledging the co-presence but not doing much about it and within lingering on it for too long) (you have to be respectful for someone's privacy) - Options 1 & 2 inappropriate; others treated non-persons, not civil - Option 3 appropriate; respects privacy & civility - We establish this social contract with one another - Pre-cellphone civil inattention = reading newspapers Open & Closed Persons - In public we do things to signal to others we are either “open” or “closed” to interaction - Closed persons embody civil inattention; avoid unnecessary interaction by signaling their unavailability - Open persons invite engagement by their: 1. Status (ex: a public figure) 2. Presence in interactive contexts (ex: mixers, bar) 3. Signaling (voluntarily or involuntarily) a willingness to engage in interaction with strangers - V: wearing sports gear and wanting to talk about it - In: someone who is pregnant or has a baby, or has a cast on their leg The Telephone’s Impact on Relationships - The first bi-directional communication device was the telephone (creator Alexander Grandbell 1800s) - Early resistance due to skepticism & fear - → people were fearful because could the phone hear us when we were not using it? - → Ex: partylines and having strangers listening to you - → it was a disruption to peoples working lives - ex: postal service workers - → a lot of people thought that the phone was magical - → people were also worried about getting shocked and electrocuted - Telephones are now normalized, but the period of early adoption was a difficult, gradual transition - The tech is showing how we engage in society, but humans are also shaping tech  - People came to rely on the telephone as it became embedded in social norms & practices - ​The telephone rewrote boundaries set out by class, race, and status, and created a new form of social accessibility - → As long as you had enough financials, you could connect with people using the telephone - Social accessibility: the ability to control how others can contact us in real life or in the digital sphere (ex: calling your government) - This new technology opened up previously sheltered social realms, such as the home - → the home was a place that was largely inaccessible - now people can call you when you are at home and connect you, without having to come out your front door - History of the telephone. What began as a simple idea has been transformed into complex computer technology that continues to shape social relationships in new ways. Impact of Digital & Mobile Media on Relationships - In terms of penetration rates, seniors have been slower Internet adopters than younger generations (but the older generation is catching up and starting to use and know more about technology) - starting to stabilize - Prensky identified two groups in terms of usage patterns: 1. Digital immigrants came to the Internet later in life and have been generally slower to adopt 2. Digital natives have a significantly higher adoption rate, mainly because they have grown up with the Internet and are unfamiliar with pre-Internet time - Social media influences social relationships in profound ways: 1) Presentation of self online 2) Rethinking friendship on social media 3) Romance online 4) Virtual mourning 1) Presentation of Self Online - “Self” often defined as containing information such as one’s name, how one perceives oneself, likes & dislikes, beliefs, and values - Higgins’ core components of the self:  1. Actual self: the self that is based on your actual physical and social attributes (who you actually are) 2. Ideal self: who you want to be perceived to be (i want others to see me this way) 3. “Ought to be” self: moral expectations and aspirations of themselves (things that someone should be) (i ought to be more like this) (shapes their behaviours and attitudes) - Does one’s virtual self differ from one’s self IRL (“in real life”)? - The self represents how we see ourselves or “the self”, who you think you are - Identity play. Turkle argued that the Internet allows for identity exploration of and experimentation with variations of the self - There is an online disinhibition effect → share a range of personas & beliefs - Context collapse: happens when different parts of your life—like friends, family, coworkers, and online connections—overlap in the same space, such as on social media. This blending of social roles can make it hard to manage how you present yourself to different groups 2) Rethinking Friendship on Social Media - Traditionally friendship is an informal association without distinct boundaries, culturally determined, and based on social norms - Features of social networking sites that affect friendship formation: 1. Persistence: data posted on profiles and walls of social networking sites remain indefinitely archived and can be retrieved in the future 2. Searchability: this is a key feature of digital data because it facilitates finding information about others 3. Replicability: refers to capabilities provided online to reproduce content and insert it in other contexts 4. Invisible audience: Determining the identity of a recipient or reader of a post is not easy, so it is difficult to tailor images toward specific audiences - Greater engagement in social comparison & feedback seeking - Social comparison: the self is evaluated using information in the environment and in particular relying on the opinions of peers - Feedback seeking: looking for peers to like posts and to engage positively with digital content as affirmation - Need digital literacy to spot authenticity, differentiating between frontstage and backstage presentations of self  - Front stage self: wanting to show your followers the best things in your life and not your true self - Back stage self: only wanting to show certain factors of self to intimate people in our lives 3) Romance Online - Social media are used for many different purposes: - Learn about person’s interests, personality - Screen potential romantic partners - Move the relationship forward more quickly - Declare relationship status, sexual orientation - Online anonymity creates concerns about becoming involved with someone who is not who they appear to be (catfished) - Social media have made breaking up more difficult (Breakup 2.0) (the end of romance) (you manipulate the internet and share information about you) - Digital traces make it hard to leave the relationship behind - Problematic breakup practices that are unique to social media: using the internet to change the dynamics of breakups (sometimes you don’t even have to breakup in person because of technology) - Changing status - Re-reading posts and comments (your posts and comments are always there) - Online stalking (cyberstalking) - Defriending - Ghosting as a breakup strategy involves the complete absence of communication - There can be a lack of closure (because you don’t have to be face-to-face explaining yourself) 4) Virtual Mourning - Social networking sites (SNSs) create an illusion that content and individual are one entity - We have leaned on tech as a crutch, to not show up to a physical mourning process and tech creating mourning people online - Carroll and Landry identified four activities on SNSs after loss: - Creation of a narrative of the dead person’s life: (public online eulogize) - Public expression of loss and solidarity:  - Praise for the deceased: - Asking the deceased for guidance, comfort, and understanding: (online platforms to connect with people who have passed: moving pictures, holograms, old videos, QR codes on tombstones with stories) - Basically, just trying to pass these stories on in the online area and looking at their online platforms and thinking about their memories - Funeral selfies, like the one here with Barak Obama at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela, have sparked debate about funeral norms, and how we commemorate the deceased and our connection to them. Week 9: Surveillance Society Why Study Surveillance Society? - Technology’s pervasiveness in our everyday lives has increased the amount of public & private surveillance - Surveillance has evolved from physical observation to data collection and analysis through digital technology (surveillance has a lot to do with data collection) - we are in a information age - the communication, but more importantly information is the new gold/oil - Technology has provided unprecedented tools for collecting, storing, and analyzing personal data - could be making money off of it and wanting to make sure you are not being deviant - Surveillance is a mechanism for power & control worthy of our attention - Used to maintain order and following rules/government rules - Snapchat allows users to share their location in real time, raising privacy concerns. In what ways are you surveilled by family and friends? How do you resist? Defining and Understanding Surveillance - The term surveillance has French roots meaning “watching over”, monitor or oversight  - Peers spending hours scanning through friends’ photos, wall posts, and status updates on social media is known as creeping (we are naturally curious about how others behave and we are curious about what other people do and social media amplifies that) - Surveillance Capitalism: the monetization of personal data captured from various means of monitoring individuals’ movement or behaviours - How are you being monitored? When algorithm create predicted advertising based upon your past attention, what you like, and what you look at all the time - Create products that anticipate what you will do now, soon, and later - E.g., predictive advertising, behavioural nudges - Surveillance Capitalism: Shoshana Zuboff discusses the power of surveillance capitalism. She is the author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School. - Describe a new economic system where personal data is commodified (talks about nature and land that could be bought and sold) (“our futures are being sold and bought in a behavioural marketplace”) - we are the product - The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the National Security Agency (NSA) in USA gather intelligence to support national and international security (monitor activities to detect threats such as terrorism, cyberattacks) - 5 eyes: alliance between Can, US, England, Aus, New Zealand - international intelligence gathering organization - FVEY pressures private telecom companies to break encryption and monitor calls in real time to enhance surveillance of citizens. - Liquid surveillance: contemporary surveillance in a “liquid modern world” where paths of life are mobile and flexible, and surveillance is constant (not just about monitoring, but about how our data flows through platforms) - Who is Snowden? A former NSA contractor who leaked classified documents in 2013. - What did the leaks reveal? NSA was conducting mass surveillance of private citizens, collecting their internet activity, emails, and cellphone data. This included targeting both foreign nationals and U.S. citizens, sometimes without proper authorization. Our Understanding of Surveillance - Three main perspectives that influence our understanding of surveillance: 1. Capitalism - Rise of industrialization brought with it a significant shift in surveillance - Led to new forms: controlling workers and increase productivity (using assembly line to control your workers and producing at a rate that is going to make profit) (open and closed cuticles - your work behaviours can be monitored) - Highlights that people in position of power are onto people who don’t have these privileges - Surveillance took two forms: - As an internal component of production - As a means of discipline - Criticisms of this perspective stress its narrow focus (2) - Its limited because its too narrow for an explanation of surveillance - 1. Surveillance is not always about economic factors - there can be social reason (ex: parents looking at children location 50% monitor their kids) - 2. Surveillance is welcomed (I would rather be more productive and would rather have these monitors - I get some sort of benefit out of it) 2. Rationalization - Max Weber: we have shifted away from tradition and now being a rules society - a decision should feed on rational choice: making decisions based on logical reasoning and what is most efficient, rather than on emotions or personal ties. - Instead of behaviour relying on kinship ties, tradition, and informal affiliations, it now relies on rules based on rational choice - Rationalization: It's a process where society becomes focused on efficiency, predictability, and rules to achieve goals - Weber describes three factors that play a role in this shift: knowledge, growing impersonality, & enhanced control - Knowledge: you need information that is scientific and technology to make decision making - Growing Impersonality: we have increasingly been objectified as individuals - we are kind of like a cog in the machine and our relationships have slowly become impersonal (rational decision making can be hindered if you have strong personal bonds within someone because of emotion clouding your thinking) - Enhanced Control: leads to this ultimate control - more data = more control = greater efficiency.  - Creates an iron cage: a social system based on efficiency, rational decision-making, and bureaucratic rules with little room for individual needs and life histories (trapped in a system) (one hand there is rationally made decisions, but at the same time we trap ourselves and we alienate ourselves and lose a piece of ourselves) (gives us order but it constrains us) 3. Power - For Foucault, power is an inherent part of all social relationships and social systems - Power becomes apparent in our social relationships and we are born into this system and power structures - Social control becomes a central feature of modern societies - Control is achieved through hierarchical observation: the exertion of power and control simply through surveillance (people surveilling people below them) - Foucault’s work on prisons provides a highly compelling and influential analysis of surveillance - Power is imbedded in the design of figure spaces (ex: fishbowl) - Bentham’s model of the Panopticon follows two principles: 1. Visibility of power: the principle that power is centrally displayed to intimidate 2. Unverifiability of power: the principle that one cannot determine whether one is being observed - Benetham says that this Panopticon is the ideal type of prison situation - arch can inforce power through surveillance and its physical space and representation - Ex: prison - the tower has guards that are constantly watching (this makes the prisoners worried and create self-censorship in these bad men where they have to watch that they do because they never know if they are being watched - because the tower is a one-way mirror) - Visibility of power + unverifiability of power = automation of power self-surveillance (you don't even need to have people there, you just need the symbols and the unverifiability aspect) - You just need the possibility of someones watching you Technology’s Role in the New Surveillance - Information technology has made our lives more open to the public than ever before  - Gary T. Marx identifies three approaches that describe changes in surveillance as a result of information technologies: 1. Functional view: In order to operate effectively, society needs security & safety; this requires that personal information be collected & stored. Surveillance tech assists. 2. Revolutionary view: Technology has radically transformed surveillance, leading to much less privacy in our lives. 3. Cultural view: Technology is radically changing surveillance, but social & cultural factors shape surveillance. (humans get to shape the surveillance practices of society and we have to harness the tech for the public good so we can protect our privacy) (we have some agency in this) (we can create a positive tech future) - New surveillance: the use of technical means to extract or create personal data Technology’s Role in the New Surveillance - The right to be forgotten allows citizens to request personal information to be removed from a search engine’s result page - Attempts to balance privacy & freedom information - Varies globally (ex: European Union vs. U.S. emphasis on free speech & public access) - Though some data are considered personal and private, most users will willingly disclose this information in order to gain access to online services - Privacy Trade-Off: exchange personal data for convenience and free access - Platforms capitalize on opaque consent models Privacy Concerns in the Digital Age - Mark Zuckerberg: “privacy is dead” What does he mean by this? Do you agree? - He argues that people have agreed to this by using social media and this has changed social norms and people are more willing to share about our lives - Privacy concerns arise from unease about the misuse of personal data, promoting the need to protect it from others Why Disclose Personal Information Despite Privacy Concerns? - Online users are not fully aware of their vulnerability to privacy threats - “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” - Privacy becomes a concern only when it has been lost or breached - Voluntarily disclosing information online crafts an online presence, known as information revelation - Privacy paradox: Users report high levels of concern about the potential misuse of their personal data but continue to disclose large amounts of personal information online Resistance to Surveillance: Resistance involves challenging these practices, both theoretically (understanding and questioning them) and through action (engaging in practices that counter surveillance) - Counter-Surveillance (CS): Efforts to challenge or expose surveillance by making these practices visible or turning the tools of surveillance against the watchers - 1. Sousveillance: Individuals or groups monitor the institutions or authorities that are surveilling them. (Recording police officers during public interactions to hold them accountable) - Inverse surveillance: recording, monitoring, and questioning surveillance technologies (using tech to make it harder for gov to track us - vpn) - Reflectionism: proposes to use technology as a mirror to question and confront the ubiquity of surveillance in our modern society - 2. Privacy protection strategies: digital privacy protection strategies occur at a micro-level, with people protecting themselves against potential threats to their privacy (e.g., customizing privacy settings on Instagram)  Week 10: Ethics & Technology Why Study the Ethical Implications of Technology? - To innovate and create technology responsibly and thoughtfully (ex: How best to develop HR AI systems to avoid bias in selecting & promoting workers?) - To create careful consideration of societal impacts (ex: Should we ban social media access for youth under 16?) - To decide on appropriate uses (ex: reducing deep fakes) Ethical and Moral dimensions of Our Technological Society 1) Neutrality of Technology - Supporters of this perspective argue that technology is impartial because, unlike humans, it lacks a set of moral values and direction - Sundstrom (1998) has described three instances in which technology could be deemed as being value-neutral: → Multiple Uses of Tools: based on the notion that if a technology has multiple and ambiguous uses, value is assigned to that artifact only by humans through the possible uses of the device. The application or purpose of an artifact is not limited to a singular function; a number of purposes may exist for a single artifact → Uncontextualized Tool: relies on the notion that value is assigned to an object only when a value-laden being, such as a human, assigns a certain set of values to the device though applied practice → Tool as Science: technology is the product of science, which is inherently neutral, technology should also be perceived as being value neutral - Critics: Technology is filled with values of the culture it originates from Moral Machines - What kinds of decisions should machines make? - Driverless cars create new moral dilemmas - Researchers from MIT created a moral dilemma to investigate how research can inform the potential moral decisions that machines may have to make when on the road - Ex: “As a driverless car is driving on the street, its brakes fail and it is presented with two choices. Should it A) Veer right, running into a large group of elderly people or B) Veer left, running into a woman pushing a stroller” 2) Technology as Human Destiny - Metaphor of Destiny: Technology as inescapable, inevitable and intrinsic part of human existence - Jonas divides technology into two distinct and separate spheres: - 1. Traditional Technologies: stationary & require direct human input - 2. Modern Technologies: autonomous & active (constantly evolving basically by itself) - Grant argues technological destiny permeates all aspects of society - Shapes how we understand the world and ourselves - Dependence on technology blinds us to its dangers and non-tech solutions to problems  - Ex: Environmental Degradation. Does our faith in technology (e.g., carbon capture) lead us to focus less on non-tech alternatives like reforestation and reduced consumption? - “Destiny” central to Heidegger’s inquiry - Modern tech endangers our agency and choice over our destiny by concealing the full reality of its true nature - Heidegger feared that humans would become an object of technology - Heidegger’s Solution: not to outright reject technology, but to detach ourselves and extensively question technology’s purpose and role in society - Ex: Sci-Fi Imaginings: an apocalyptic, dystopian future like the one depicted in The Matrix—where humans fully become objects of technology—overly fanciful or predictive? Have our phones already brought us part of the way? 3) Technology as Progress - Technology: a driver of advancement and improvement in human society - Technology is an enabler, empowering people to fulfill their needs and wants - Baudrillard argues that “technology as progress” is a myth - Moral Backwardness: is when society’s ethical values fail to keep up with advancements in technology and material wealth - Model of Regressiveness: society, distracted by ideas of technological progress, morally degenerates due to a lack of critical discussion about social inequalities and injustices brought about by the system of production The Gizmo - Baudrillard uses the term “gizmo” to describe technologies that have no clear societal purpose - “Gizmo” is an indeterminate term with a vague and limitless functionality - Reinforces the belief that every problem may be foreseen and resolved (reinforces that “tech is always the answer” when its not) - Sufficient “gizmos” come to suggest “civilization” Electronic Waste - What happens to our gadgets when they are broken, obsolete, or simply no longer fashionable?  - Often exported to other countries (ex: Ghana) poorly equipped to deal with toxic materials - Range of discarded household and commercial technologies (ex: computers, cellphones, televisions and batteries) - The amount of electronic waste produced annually has steadily risen because of: → Globalization, Development, Population Growth and Declining Retail Prices A Society of Overload - How can we address problems resulting from overreliance on technology? - Technology contributes to a sense of overload - Time-Space Compression: interactions and the flow of information to occur at a faster pace and without constraints of distance - Information Overload: the inability to effectively make decisions because of too much information - Need a measured evaluation of the societal, moral, and ethical benefits of technology