Introduction

The interaction of technology and society may be the one thing more than any other that gives society a meaning and defines us a human beings. In recent years it has become popular to point fingers of accusation at technology as if it were "autonomous" and driving us all to perdition. I take other view.

No doubt the uses of technology and society interact strongly. I think it wrongheaded and very naive to think of aggressive technology affecting a passive society eroding away the things that give society value and leaving behind a rusted hulk. Admittedly there always the potential for abuse or misuse of a technology, but technology is not inherently destructive, I argue.

In the following we will consider ten effects …show more content…

How many do you know now? If you answer honestly, you will be astonished at the manifold changes that have taken place in just a single decade. And the next decade promises to outstrip the last by far.

Technology's Effect on Social Systems

Briefly, the extent to which a technology affects social systems has to do with basic patterns among social groups and the changing patterns of needs and need fulfillment resulting from technological change.

When the Industrial Revolution came about and particularly when the industrialization of America took place in the last century and first half of the present century, a number of social factors changed. Many of these changes impacted not only those directly involved in the process, but also those who chose not to be involved in the industrial boom.

Workers in an industrial setting are able to command higher wages than farm workers. This is a fact of economic life. It is the result of the efficiency of labor in an industrial setting compared with the efficiency and productivity of farm workers, on whom, at the time of the first industrializing moves in America, the country's economy was based. Economic systems recompense workers in accordance with their productivity rather than how hard or how long they work. It is their production level that determines how valuable they are. For the industrial worker, whose level of productivity working in a mill or production