Graham H May, Principal Lecturer in Futures Research, Leeds
Metropolitan University, published in Inventing the Future,
Partnerships for Tomorrow, January 1996.
Information Technology has already been blamed, among other things
for:
It is about to be blamed for, if it has not already:
Other technologies in the past have
been accused of similar impacts - the car and television in
particular - though perhaps not as early in their development. It may
be the very experience of the apparent disbenefits associated with
these and other technologies that have alerted us to the problems
that any technology creates.
Some have even suggested that if we had known beforehand the problems
that the car has created we would not have developed it. But then we
would have been without its obvious benefits too.
IT has been called a meta-technology and a ubiquitous technology,
meaning that it has importance beyond the confines of IT itself
through its inclusion in a whole range of appliances and its
combination with other technologies to create completely new
opportunities.
Undoubtedly it is an important influence on society but, like the
steam engine which has been seen as having a similar kind of impact
during the Industrial Revolution, it is one facet of a much broader
change. Phrases like The Third Wave, Post Industrial Society, Post
Modernism and Information Age have been coined to describe the late
twentieth century. Only the last of these offers any positive
identification to the period, the others only tell us where we no
longer are, or that we are undergoing another change. This is not
surprising because it is difficult to identify change until it has
occurred.
The scale and pace of development of IT has been one of its most
significant features and provides some explanation for its rapid
penetration. This is summed up in Moore's Law which points to a
doubling of the capability of IT every 18 months to 2 years. Bill
Gates, for one sees no reason why this should not continue for
another 10 years or so at least.
IT raises again the question of the relationship between society and
technology. It is frequently assumed that technology has a
deterministic influence over society. It clearly does have an
influence but to be strictly determinist it would need to exist apart
from society. It doesn't and consequently the relationship is more
likely probabilistic rather than determinist.
People do climb Everest because it is there, but not everyone chooses
to do so. Technology offers opportunities, some very persuasive, but
not everyone takes them up. The relationship is made more complex
because technology does not just happen, it is made to happen as the
result of human decision and action. Certain groups within society
influence the development of technology through the funding of
R&D, marketing etc. VHS is said to be technically inferior to
Betamax but its marketing was better so it became the standard. The
Apple Mac, among others, is claimed to be a better computer than the
PC, but the PC dominates the market thanks to the likes of IBM and
Microsoft.
Society's relationship with its technology is a complex one of
interacting influences. Blaming the Internet for pornography is like
blaming Guttenberg for 'top-shelf' magazines, and to ignore much of
literature including Shakespeare and Chaucer. Not that IT does not
bring new angles to the problem.
Technology is often used in surprising ways not anticipated by its
originators or developers. The Internet is a good example. It began
as a communications system for the US military in the event of
nuclear conflict. It relies on an infrastructure that had to be
invented, planned, designed, made and put in place. It is unlikely
that the US military anticipated the anarchy of the Net. It is
probably the last thing they would have imagined and certainly not
what they planned.
The debate about the impacts of IT ranges from enthusiasts to
pessimists with very different views about where it is taking us. The
following table sums up some of the main dimensions of the
debate.
DIMENSION
ENTHUSIAST
PESSIMIST
Social structure
Golden age of leisure
Haves & have nots
Economy
Shared affluence
Very rich/Very poor
Geography
New rural society
Electronic hermit
Politics
Genuine participation
Manipulation
Consumer choice
Mass produced individuality
Any colour as long as it is black
Entertainment
Unlimited choice
Electronic babel
Equality and access
Information as equaliser
Capable/Incapable
Financial structure
Cashless society
Informal economy writ large
State and the citizen
Electronic freedom
Big Brother a la 1984
The actual impact is not likely to be either of these extremes but
may have features that are perceived by different observers as having
characteristics of either. At the present time there are a number of
concerns about the way the technology is being developed and notable
among them are access, set-up costs and exclusivity.
Clearly, at present access is limited, not everyone has the necessary
technology, whereas practically everyone has a letter box. That was
not always the case, nor did everyone possess the ability to read or
respond in writing. Both were exclusive at one time. A number of
developments, notably printed books and mass education were necessary
to bring about the situation we now consider to be normal, i.e.
nearly everyone being able to communicate through words on paper.
The great unknown about the new information technologies is when and
if the same critical mass will develop. Efforts like Partnerships for
Tomorrow are part of the process, but it is much easier to argue
against the use of IT because it is not yet universal than to argue
for it because it might become so. Perhaps the best argument is that
we, as a society, cannot afford to allow only the powerful to have
the ability to use it. We have concerns about the influence of
ownership over the media, but to counteract them we attempt to
regulate them and produce alternatives rather than close them
down.
The set-up costs of acquiring a computer, modem etc., and affording
the running costs are an issue. Perhaps the need is for a larger
second hand market. There must be an increasing number of older
models that are being dumped or left in lofts that could relatively
cheaply be put to use. One problem with this is the rapid
obsolescence of IT equipment, but if we get nearer a situation in
which an old banger will at least get you on to the super highway
more people may be able to afford the entry costs.
The same issue arises with schools either in providing the facilities
in house or as some have suggested for students at home. A way round
this could come with the realisation that providing computers for
home study is much cheaper than real estate. The existing real estate
probably acts as a lagging factor; we have it and cannot just get rid
of it, or envisage not having it. Changes in that situation could
well come from the increasing financial squeeze on higher education
leading to reductions in residential study or successful schools
which are oversubscribed seeing it as a way of increasing their
intake. Current funding systems probably could not cope with such
innovation but I know of at least one Chairman of Governors who has
thought of it.
Exclusivity is clearly a problem at the moment. Although the Internet
is growing at a phenomenal rate it is still a small minority who have
access. The question is, is that a good enough reason for
discouraging further developments? Car ownership has only reached
about 70 % of households, a much lower proportion of individuals, and
although there is much criticism in certain quarters of developments,
like out-of-town shopping malls and multi-screen cinemas, which
disadvantage non-car owners, they are increasingly popular.
If the parallel has any use it probably suggests that we would be
better to address the issues of unequal access to the developments of
IT than to attempt to prevent it happening, unless we discover that
the heat from all these computers is causing global warming! It is
important to think about the potential development of IT and other
new technologies before we make avoidable mistakes. The difficulty is
that predicting what the effects will be is far from certain, we may
be imagining dragons where there are none and walking straight over
the cliff. Perhaps the fact that some of the issues have been
recognised comparatively early in the development of the technology
is, paradoxically, an encouraging sign.
Graham May G.MAY@LMU.AC.UK