Can you imagine a world without trains and airplanes? Not being able to text your friends whenever you wanted to or travel long-distance?
It isn't easy to imagine a world without modern transportation systems and mobile devices. To a certain degree, these technological developments have made human life much easier than before and contributed to social and environmental improvements. On the other hand, they have also caused severe problems in society.
- We will look at the issues with technology.
- We will consider the definition of issues with technology.
- We will discuss issues with technology in society.
- Then, we will mention social issues in using technology.
- We will summarize the negative impact of technology on society.
- Finally, we will look at issues with technology and privacy.
Issues with Technology: Definition
Technology constantly shapes our everyday lives today. It has transformed the world of agriculture, industry, the criminal justice system, education, entertainment, and work. These are just the biggest areas where technology plays a role, but there are many smaller avenues in daily life where we use technology.
In many regards, technology has made human life easier. However, it has worsened a couple of old issues and even created new problems.
Fig. 1 - Technology has had both considerably positive and negative impacts on society.
Issues with Technology in Society
One of the biggest issues with technology is that access to it has never been equal. Moreover, technology can create greater inequalities in other areas of life.
Technological stratification has become a serious issue, compelling sociologists to study it. Now, it is a great concern of scholars to come up with solutions and improve access to technology for people from all walks of life.
Scholars distinguish between two forms of technological inequality.
- The first one is the so-called digital divide. This refers to unequal access to technology based on class.
- The second form of inequality, the so-called knowledge gap, was created to a certain extent by the digital divide.
The knowledge gap refers to the phenomenon that underprivileged societies and social groups have less information about the world, social issues, and the causes behind them than privileged countries and social groups.
Since technology plays a crucial role in information transmission in modern society, limited access to technology equals limited access to information. That is how the digital divide is connected to the knowledge gap.
Students who attend schools with significant funding have more plentiful and modern resources in terms of technological devices. They are more e-ready and develop greater competency, making them much more employable in a work market that is becoming increasingly dependent on technology.
This creates a split in our society between those who possess technological expertise and those who do not.
E-readiness means selecting and interpreting the right kind of information from Internet sources, thus gaining knowledge (Sciadas, 2003).
Social Issues in Using Technology
Let us look at the digital divide in a little more detail.
The Digital Divide in the 1990s
Rappaport found that personal computer use rose drastically from around 300,000 users to 10 million in 5 years between 1991 and 1996 (Rappaport, 2009). And today, many more people own computers and use them daily than in the 1990s.
Social scientists, however, found that people have different levels of access to new technology based on their race, class, and geographical location. These differences in access to technology came to be known as the digital divide.
According to studies made in the 1990s, wealthy people were likelier to own personal computers and enroll their children in schools with high-tech equipment. Schools in lower-class areas often lacked such devices, and poorer families often could not buy a computer for home.
Regarding geographic location, urban and suburban areas were more likely to have Internet access, while many regions in the country were not connected to the net.
Improvements of the 2000s
The 2000s seemed to bring improvements in terms of technological inequality. The prices of computers and smartphones dropped, which meant poorer people could also afford them. It seemed that the digital divide was ending naturally.
However, more recent studies show that there still exist differences in Internet access between people of different classes, ages, and races. There is even a very slight difference in Internet use between men and women.
The Pew Research Center’s studies from 2011 point to another emerging divide connected to technology.
Minority ethnic groups, such as African Americans and Latinos in the US, tend to connect to the Internet through their phones rather than computers. Applying for jobs, filling out forms, and updating one’s resume are all much harder on a small device such as a smartphone. As a result, even if one has access to the Internet, it might not be from the device that can provide access to employment or education.
According to research by Mossberger, Tolbert, and Gilbert (2006), the bulk of the digital divide among African Americans may be attributed to demographic and community-level factors like socioeconomic status and geography. Regardless of geography or economics, the Latino population's usage of technology seems to be constrained by their ethnicity alone.
There is another issue closely connected to Internet access and the digital divide. It is the question of net neutrality.
Net Neutrality
Net neutrality states that data available on the Internet are all equal and should be treated equally by service providers.
Two opposing sides have formed around the question of net neutrality.
The first side, supporting net neutrality, claims that an Internet service provider is just like any other service provider (for water or electricity, for example), and, thus, should be prohibited from discriminating against customers or because of the nature of certain products. Their reasoning is that ensuring net neutrality protects the smaller, local service providers against big corporations.
On the other side of the debate, those against net neutrality argue that it would mean limitations and a burden for companies to operate profitably. If they cannot produce profit, they will not be able to invest in improving and spreading the service further, which would benefit no one in the long term.
The legal regulations around Internet service providers and net neutrality are ultimately decided by the Federal Communications Commission and the federal government.
National and Global Technological Stratification
The stratification of society on a national and global scale will be severely impacted by this new technology.
On a national scale, computer technology could exacerbate existing disparities: We might create an information have-not population, mostly made up of inner-city people who are cut off from the information flow that is essential to prosperity. Or, this technology might offer a chance to leave urban and rural poverty-stricken areas behind.
The same concern, but on a larger scale, arises when we examine the world as a whole: Will the Least Industrialized Nations' unequal access to cutting-edge technology condemn them to a state of everlasting poverty? Or will having access to this modern technology serve as their ticket to prosperity?
Negative Impacts of Technology on Society
There are certain aspects of technology that have negative impacts on society in indirect ways. Below, we will discuss technology's role in consumerism , environmental issues, and peope's attention spans.
Promotion of Consumption by Technology
Online technology has created a way for commercials and advertisements to be present in our lives all of the time. Everyone wants to sell something to us. We encounter commercials everywhere, at the doctor's office, driving by billboards, watching television, etc.
Sociologists argue it promotes an unhealthy consumption culture where we are encouraged to spend and spend and accumulate more and more without thinking of the negative environmental impact we have on the planet. What is more, we are made to believe that consumption will bring us happiness and when that turns out not to be accurate, we blame ourselves and fall into mental health struggles.
You can read more about the media’s specific impact on contemporary society in our explanation, 'Media and Technology in Sociology'.
Environmental Issues Created By Technology
The world's most pressing problems today are the ones connected to the environment. Scholars have argued that the environmental decay we have been experiencing results from technological development, globalization, and the culture of overconsumption.
Most industrial nations are trying to maintain their businesses and keep profits high, so they do not stop production despite its clear environmental costs. The industrializing nations are trying to catch up to the giant corporations and match their profit, so they are increasing production too. The least industrialized countries have not even entered the competition, and very often, they suffer the most from it.
Global production increases pollution - the faster it is, the faster the Earth's environment is being degraded. Many animal species are extinct, and more are on the verge of extinction. Despite the efforts to use technology to build sustainable businesses, the environment has so far suffered much more from technological inventions than gained from them.
Overreliance on Technology
Studies have shown that more and more people are so attached to their phones that it can be called an addiction.
Just think about it for a moment. How many times do you look at your phone per day? How many hours do you spend daily scrolling through different apps? Do you keep your phone at your bedside so it can be reached anytime?
People are more and more likely to feel the need to be online all the time, and they spend ever-increasing amounts of time on their technological devices. This increased use of technology distracts them from their ‘real’ surroundings, and it is more and more difficult for friends, partners, and family members to have each other’s undivided attention.
About one in five mobile phone owners claim that using their phone has made it at least somewhat more difficult to put work aside when they are at home or on the weekends, to give others their whole attention, or to concentrate on one job without becoming sidetracked (Smith, 2012). Imagine how much this may have increased in the years since!
Fig. 2 - Many people spend multiple hours a day on their phones.
Issues with Technology and Privacy
What once appears on the Internet remains on the Internet. People are constantly sharing personal information, shopping, conducting business, and storing information on their computers. This increases their digital footprint and makes them vulnerable to criminals who aim to use the information to their advantage.
Online privacy and security are thus key concern of our present time. It is not just individuals who can suffer hack attacks, but companies, political parties, and banks. In these cases, the stakes are even higher, as these corporations usually store personal information of millions of people. The threat of identity theft is incredibly concerning.
However, setting up security measures to guard against increasingly sophisticated and large-scale privacy breaches is difficult.
Two datasets from Facebook apps were discovered to have been made available to the public internet in April 2019. The data includes phone numbers, account names, and Facebook IDs and related to more than 530 million Facebook members. The information was re-posted in 2021, indicating fresh criminal intent about the data.
Issues With Technology - Key takeaways
- In many regards, technology has made human life easier. However, it has worsened many old issues and even created new problems.
- One of the most significant issues with technology is that access to it has never been equal. Moreover, technology can create greater inequalities in other areas of life.
- Scholars distinguish between two forms of technological inequality. The first one is the so-called digital divide. This refers to unequal access to technology based on class. The second form of inequality, the so-called knowledge gap, was created to a certain extent by the digital divide.
Net neutrality states that data available on the Internet are all equal and should be treated equally by service providers.
Despite the efforts to use technology to build sustainable businesses, the environment has so far suffered much more from technological inventions than gained from them.
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