Week 4 Question 2: The Technology and the Society

Williams covers three sections in this article about technology and the society and that includes:

1. Cause and Effect in Technology and Society

2. The Social History of Television as Technology

3. The Social History of the Uses of Television Technology

Of each three sections he discussed, I thought the cause and effect in technology section (the first section) was the most interesting. He talks about technological determinism which basically means society's technology is what shapes social and cultural values. Basically technology is very predictable and pattern based. As technology changes, the society changes. It is much more in depth than that but that is the basic overview of it.

This interested me a lot because I never thought about the cause and effect technology had on the society. Although it has been clear to me that we change overtime, I never really associated it with the significance of technology. But this made it very clear to me as I started to apply it to my personal life. For example when I was in Elementary school, Internet was very limited so most people hung out and talked in person. Now it is so easy to connect with people online that our society has shapes itself around that and is slowly replacing face-to-face communication with the Internet. This is just one example but there are several more that can be seen from this article. It was very eye-opening and a great read!