Uses of Technology

After reading each chapter, I found chapter three to be the most interesting. To me the difference between Cultural Determinism and Technological Determinism are extremely opposing views. Personally, I agree with the idea of Cultural Determinisms for many reasons. 

The section in where the belief that new writing technologies make people mentally lazy and forgetful is mentioned is a very negative way to look at the advancements of technology. Yes, maybe that is true in the sense that less people remember the stories verbatim, but more people ultimately learn the material because of the ability to distribute to a wide audience. It is up to society whether or not they want to learn the material in depth. It is not the technologies fault that the people become lazy, it is their choice in how they use it. Like stated on page 45 “Effects are not imposed on us by the technologies themselves.” Which leads me to my belief in Cultural determinism.

I believe that people are naturally curious creatures. Always looking for new information and ideas. Their curiosity and determination has lead to many of the new technologies we have today. Without people desire to make technology in the first place, we would not have all the advancements we do now. People themselves decided to makes these things, they were not just produced out of thin air. Although I do not look at the gun as a necessarily positive advancement, the saying, “Guns don’t kill people, people do”, is a good example of the ‘curiosity’ of society. If a person was killed by gun fire it is not the guns ‘fault’, the person holding it made the decision to pull the trigger. In no way was the gun telling the person to do it. Also, another example could be the excerpt from the beginning of chapter two. The woman who had backed down he driveway in the car to get the mail. She did not have to use the car to get down the driveway, but now with all the new technologies culture has people have gotten used to the conveniences of it all. They like to have things easily available to them at all time which in turn has lead to more advancements. 

Technology itself cannot tell people how to use it, ultimately it is how people chose to interact with it. Potentially, technology could lead to amazing things in the future as long as it is used in the proper forms.