Is Anything Neutral?

Photo: Alba Soler via Flickr
Photo: Alba Soler via Flickr

During the Week Eight lecture Adrian pondered the question of whether technology, namely the Internet, is neutral. This is an interesting question because in order to develop an answer for you it you have to first decide what neutral means.

Whenever I think of the word neutral I think about those psychometric tests I’ve done for different things in my life. Whether it be a job, study etc., these tests always present totally random questions that are so hard to answer that you’re forced to respond by ticking the neutral box instead of strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree. Therefore, to say you are neutral means you have no feelings about the question at all, and you somehow sit unmoved and in-affective.

I don’t think the Internet is like this. Perhaps for those people who’ve never seen a computer before, the Internet may seem a completely useless thing. However, that doesn’t mean it’s neutral. It’s not neutral because the fact that a person may not be able to navigate the Internet does not mean to say the Internet has no affect on that person. Feelings of contempt for Westernisation, lack of education or intimidation may be brought on by a person’s lack of know-how when it comes to using the Internet.

Hence, the relationships between people and the Internet are more complicated that we think. The Internet is not simply coercive to some and neutral to others, it actually has a different relationship with different people that is constantly changing according to various factors.

With this in mind it’s hard to imagine anything at all that is truly neutral. To be truly neutral would be to have never had any contact with anything else in the world, ever. To me, existing alone, with no relationship to anything else seems impossible.

By the same token, things that don’t affect other things always have a connection – effect – on something else. Everything around us is connected to something else. The Internet, the floor, the TV, the hairbrush, event dust!

Nothing exists independently. Nothing is neutral.

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