Is technological determinism a valid way of looking at the world?
For those who don’t know, technological determinism is a philosophy that follows the idea that technology’s development follows a preconceived course, a logical progression, advances automatically, effects our way of engaging with the world and is a natural extension of the body. Through this approach to media materialism (which is the way in which we ground our understanding of media technology and its past and future advancement) is an interesting way of looking at the development of technology, as it looks at technology as an appendage, an extension of the human body in order to help humanity, encouraging progress through logic and science.
However technological determinism isn’t the best way of looking at media materialism as we don’t get every piece of the puzzle. There are other philosophies which follow very different ideals, such as social constructivism which says that because we made technology we have the ability to regulate and control how it’s used. It also disagrees with technological determinism in the way that technology advances automatically in an almost uncontrollable way. This theory tends to fall under the more social, cultural and ethical guidelines concerning technology, and many see it as a hindrance to the progress of science as it sparks much debate around progress. Such debate can be seen in most, if not all sci-fi films which caution viewers of the cost of humanity and scientific progress on humanity and the world itself.
Social constructivism outlines the fact that the progress of technology is not a straight line as technological determinism states, but rather a rocky, murky and unpredictable line. It is also a somewhat romanticized view of the world and in this way hinders the logical technological progression, and sometimes abrupt and unethical ways (e.g. sweat shops creating smart phones) of the technological determinists who create progress within society. Hence, both philosophies equalize each other and create a balanced view of the world, but only when they work together as opposed to standing apart at opposite ends of progress.