Emerging digital technologies – from crypto and blockchain to the ever contentious Artificial Intelligence (AI) – can stir quite the mix of emotions, ranging from apprehension to exhilaration and passion.
What exactly prompts these varying societal attitudes towards technologies? What significance does comprehending these emotions bear on the technological evolution and their incorporation into our lives?
This article delves into society’s love-hate relationship with technology from a sociocultural perspective. In my previous writings, I looked at the process of how a culture goes from recognition to evaluation and finally acceptance of technology.
Engaging with these emotions – fear and love – on a wider sociocultural scale aids us in viewing technologies from an alternative perspective and thus, provoking more in-depth critical thinking. In this era, marked by unparalleled technological growth and transition, such an understanding is of paramount importance.
The Anxiety Surrounding Innovative Technologies
Innovators who conceive and realize new technologies typically do so to address challenges solvable through tech advancements. Their journey ranges from harnessing the power of striking stones together to expedite food preparation, exploiting animal skins for style, to striving for maximum automation.
Society’s unease with emerging technologies is often triggered when we anticipate they will cause profound social upheaval. In our existing capitalist economy, apprehensions usually stem from the concern over extensive job loss, consequently leading to reduced income. Meanwhile, in hunter-gatherer communities, the discomfort was possibly linked to potential threats to the society’s egalitarian nature.
We are inherently inclined as a species to want to exert control, or feel as though we do, over our societies. Technologies such as AI, which is a collective term for numerous tools, stoke sociocultural anxieties. It’s not only the potential economic consequences that concern us, but also our control over societal structures. Indeed, it poses an existential challenge.
In addition, our apprehensions don’t merely revolve around individual insignificance in the face of evolving technologies, but also the potential irrelevance of our culture. The greater the perceived impact at a large scale, the greater the fear of a specific technology. This fear intensifies particularly when we believe it might alter our lifestyles and methods of interaction.
Our societal existence relies heavily on social constructs like customs, norms, traditions, and values, not to mention universal emotions. The likelihood of substantial upheaval due to a technology elicits strong emotional responses from a culture. This explains the widespread and fervent debates surrounding AI in the present day.
Fascinating Incidences of Technophobia in Society
One of the most frequently mentioned technophobia on a large scale is related to the Luddites. However, it wasn’t technology itself that intimidated them. Rather, they were apprehensive about the potential for increased economic disparity.
During the 1800s, the advent of railways sparked widespread terror. Some even went to the extreme of suggesting that a woman’s uterus might be expelled from her body if a train were to exceed speeds of 60 Km/hr! Others had fears about our bodies dissolving.
As telephones gained popularity in the late 1800s, an article in the New York Times raised concerns about privacy violations due to their use – a debate that still rings true today. Intriguingly, the article also suggested that telephones might provide us with a means to converse with the deceased.
Concerns emerged as the utilization of the telegraph escalated; many were gripped by the apprehension that it could severely damage the integrity of the English language, potentially hampering the beauty of poetry and reducing our discourse to fragmented phrases.
The advent of vaccines sparked widespread panic as well, mainly due to their bovine origin. Many held the irrational fear that this could somehow transform us into cows. Similarly, as electricity made its way into our daily routines, it was met with a general sense of dread and anxiety.
Overcoming Technological Anxiety
Seldom do our reservations about technology manifest into actual concerns. Echoing the sentiments of sociologist Weber, the infusion of technology into our societies typically leads to a greater separation of tasks, a phenomenon that has remained consistent over time.
Echoing Amara’s law, we often overvalue the immediate influence of technology while undervaluing its potential long-term ramifications. A defining feature that sets modern technological revolutions apart from those in the past is the rapid pace of advancement, coupled with the speed of communication in today’s interconnected world.
For millennia, mankind has relied on cultural adaptation to incorporate technology advancements into our lives. Considering our current hyper-connected global status, we might confront rapid shifts, not in a span of years, but perhaps decades, in contrast to centuries or millennia as before.
As technology penetrates deeper into our lives and our initial apprehensions fade, revealing more benefits than drawbacks, we tend to grow accustomed to it. Eventually, it fades into the mundane, becoming an integral thread in the societal fabric, much like the telephone and television did in their time.
The essence of being human is greatly linked with technology. It can be contended that digital technologies have had a profound influence on sociocultural structures, more than any preceding technological upheaval, potentially leading to the contemporary societal responses we witness.
However, we’re incorporating these technologies into our cultural customs and slowly adjusting to these modifications. Observing this allows us to gain a wider perspective of the ongoing adaptations and reduces apprehension surrounding certain technologies and their potential implications.
