Is technology influencing society or is society and its members influencing the birth and development of technology?

In this blog post, we’ll explore whether technology itself influences society or whether society and its members influence the birth and development of technology.

 

“People don’t know what they want until you show them what they want. Apple didn’t need market research to create the iPhone and iPad. Did Bell do market research when he invented the telephone? I just want innovation.”

These are the words of Steve Jobs, the man who changed the world with the iPhone. This means that many people don’t realize the value of a technology or product until it comes along, and only then do they realize its value, and society advances. This interpretation is based on the “technological determinism” view that technology affects society.
On the other hand, the public had this to say about the iPad’s release “It’s a revolutionary product that eliminates the hassle of carrying around an e-book device, a gaming device, and a multimedia device (PMP).” In other words, people had been waiting for a product that could do all of these things in one device, but was easy to carry around. Apple’s iPad was born in response to these consumer expectations, and people were able to accept it without rejection because they had already been exposed to or carried PMPs, e-book terminals, Nintendo, etc. This is in line with the “social construction theory” that technology is created and developed in response to the needs of society and its members.
The debate over whether technology itself influences society or whether society and its members influence the birth and development of technology has been ongoing since the past, and the debate has been so sharp that it has been theorized as “technological determinism” and “social constructionism”.
My view on both of these positions is that technologies, at least the ones that exist today, have been able to survive and develop because of the people who make up society and the social climate in which they exist. In other words, whether a technology meets the needs of the people in society or whether society is advanced enough to accept it and the climate is right for it to take hold or develop. Apple was a company that prioritized user interface more than any other company at the time, and Steve Jobs was at the center of it all. He was a hard-core technological innovator, but he focused on creating a product that users could easily enjoy and use, and that’s how the iPhone was born. This user-centered thinking is what Steve Jobs’ market research was all about.
Let’s think about smartphones more broadly. People often think of the iPhone as the first smartphone, but the first smartphone was actually IBM’s Simon, created in 1992. If technological determinists are to be believed, we should have seen the global jubilation we saw in 2007 with the iPhone 15 years earlier, in 1992. But Simon only sold about 50,000 units and was enshrined in a museum. Why was Simon’s downfall, with its unimaginable touchscreen, top-notch performance, and a host of features that were unheard of at the time? The truth is that this was the first time cell phones were available, so the idea of talking on the go was very foreign to people, and they weren’t ready for the idea of doing anything other than talking on their phones. But in the mid-2000s, when the iPhone was born, things were different. The cell phone market was already saturated with a wide variety of phones, both in terms of performance and form, and people were dissatisfied with the latest phones that didn’t seem to be any different from their old ones. Mobile phone companies began to recognize this social mood, and Apple, which prioritized user convenience and usability, was able to reintroduce the iPhone to the world and get people excited about it. This shows that technology is influenced by society, as the same type of smartphone only gained popularity in a certain era and its technology evolved.
This time, let’s think about smartphone applications (apps) and app stores. When people got smartphones, they wanted to do more than what they could do with their existing phones, but different people wanted different features, and it was technically difficult to produce phones with all of those features. So a platform called the App Store was created where people could create applications (apps) for their favorite features and sell or buy them. The number of apps on the App Store grew exponentially due to consumers’ insatiable appetite for new features, and the technology for developing apps evolved rapidly as developers tried to create better apps that sold better. In this way, apps and app stores have evolved not because of the technology itself, but because of the social environment created by smartphones and consumers’ desire for new features.
Many other technologies in the past have been influenced by the social environment. For example, the Internet, which was designed as a network that could operate in any situation by simulating a Soviet attack on the United States during the Cold War; computers, which started as military equipment to calculate ballistics and crack codes during World War II; and nuclear technology, which started as a field of pure physics but developed into the most lethal weapon in the world due to the social atmosphere of war.
Some people may question whether the technologies that were first discovered through chance or experimentation, rather than being derived or developed from other technologies, were not created in response to social needs, but rather were original technologies that influenced society in their own right. However, if we think a little deeper, we can see that even if these technologies were discovered by chance, they were eventually recognized and developed as technologies because they were influenced by the social environment.
Take, for example, X-rays, which are commonly used in hospitals today. A scientist named Röntgen was conducting an experiment to determine cathode ray fluorescence when he noticed an electromagnetic wave that didn’t match his results, so he named it “x-rays” because he couldn’t figure out what it was. This accidental discovery of X-rays played an important role in the detection of wounds in World War I, which led to the rapid development of medical technology. This may seem like an example of technology impacting society, given that it was discovered by accident rather than being developed out of a need or evolved from another technology, and the treatments that use it today play an important role in medicine. However, a technology can only be accepted as a technology if society is advanced enough to accept it, and if the right atmosphere is created. The scientific community was in the midst of studying radiation at the time, so when X-rays were discovered by accident during an experiment, they were interested and continued to study them. If the field of electromagnetic waves or radiation had not been developed at that time, X-rays would have been just one of the error results of the experiment. Also, since there were many casualties in the war at that time, it was easy to think of applying the properties of X-rays to the field of medicine, and X-rays were used in the field of medicine.
Such was the case with Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. Like X-rays, penicillin was discovered by accident and is the basis of today’s antibiotics, which have helped save countless lives. But penicillin would not have become an antibiotic if it weren’t for the social climate of the time. After witnessing many wounded in World War I die from infections caused by bacteria on their uniforms or skin, Fleming wanted to find a way to stop the growth of these bacteria, so he experimented with bacteria in his home, culturing them in petri dishes. A sudden sneeze during one of his experiments led to the discovery of an enzyme called lysozyme, which gave him a clue to the antibiotic. Later, in a petri dish he accidentally left in front of an open window, he realized that mold from the window prevented the bacteria from growing, which led to the discovery of penicillin. Fleming’s wartime social background allowed him to see countless people die from bacterial infections, and his awareness of the seriousness of germs, coupled with his numerous bacterial culture experiments and chance factors such as a sneeze or a window left open for a while, led to the invention of penicillin.
If X-rays had been discovered at a time when the social climate for studying electromagnetic waves was less favorable, or if the time period had been the Industrial Revolution rather than World War I, there is a good chance that X-rays would have been used industrially. Similarly, penicillin would not have been discovered if the war had not resulted in so many casualties, and Fleming would not have known that so many patients were dying from bacterial infections. In the end, we can see that even if a technology is discovered by accident, it is recognized and developed according to the social environment in which it emerges.
As a result, we live in a world with a wide variety of advanced technologies that have been selected by society from the past. However, this cannot be said to be the result of technology being influenced by society unilaterally. Like the “chicken or the egg” question, it depends on the perspective and values of the person looking at the issue, and there is no one right answer. Technology provides society with the opportunity to develop to the next level, and a society that has developed well by utilizing that opportunity helps the technology to develop into better technology. However, it remains to be seen whether the impact of technology on society will be greater than the impact of society on technology in the future.