Blog Post 2 - Blaming Technology for Societal Issues


The anxiety about the interactivity of new media in this article, does not come from Katherine herself, but rather from her father and the author of the article. As with many revolutionary technologies, the generation born into the age of the new technology accepts it as a sort of norm similar to the domestication of technology concept Baym describes. As such Katherine does not have anxieties about how digital media changes her life. She does not even give that concept a second thought, it is just the way she lives. Meanwhile, the generation born before the advent of the new technology reminisces about the old days as demonstrated in the “The Pace of Modern Life” cartoon. When the previous generation attempts to deal with anxieties about new technology it is almost always done through technological deterministic concepts. As such, I choose to write about this perspective because, although I do not agree with the concept, it is the most common perspective when people are worried about new technologies.

Although this article presents itself as a type of unbiased thick description, the technological deterministic rhetoric shows the anxiety about the interactivity of cellphones throughout the article. For example, the classic “back in my day” paragraph comparing Katherine’s father Dave’s lifestyle growing up in the same area pre cellphone to her life now, although not passing any direct judgement, is designed to show how the cellphone drastically determined and changed the way we live. Even Katherine herself uses this rhetoric when describing how life changed after she got her phone in sixth grade. As she says, “I just stopped doing everything I normally did”. The article itself seems to be designed make the reader anxious about how much the cell phone has determined Katherine’s life.

Another common worry of technological determinism is the new technology’s affect on children. This anxiety is what is provoked when Katherine “wants to get better at her phone”. Dave, the author, and the reader worry about how Katherine’s obsession with her phone is detrimental to her health. Through these fears, previous generations can easily blame the technology for societal problems rather than looking into far more complex ingrained societal issues.

Comments

  1. WillOctober 3, 2018 at 3:41 PM

    Hey William!

    Excellent analysis!

    Like you, I believe that the deterministic way in which the article was written is counterproductive. At the same time, it highlights Baym's argument of how our 'real-life' social anxieties are displaced onto new technologies and call for a more syntopian and dialectical view of technology. Indeed, it is interesting how we (often) subconsciously believe that journalistic stories are projected as objective truths and fail to recognize that they are subjective— constructed by the journalist according to their lived experience, opinion, etc.

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  2. JoshuaMOctober 4, 2018 at 8:53 AM

    Hey Will!

    I for sure believe what you are saying makes sense especially about the highlight of the "back in my day" paragraph represents a great comparison of the generational gap. It's intriguing to see how the reporter in the article had a bias but not outright and could very well of been a subconscious belief. Do you think that these fears would still be here without technology at all? Or do you feel like they would change?

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  3. UnknownOctober 7, 2018 at 8:02 AM

    Hello Will,

    interesting post! I agree that older generations quite frequently blame technology for a lot of societies problems. I noticed this with my parents. They constantly are talking about the 'old days' and how growing up used to be so much better without technology. I don't think it is appropriate for them to make this comparison because they didn't grow up with technology like we did. I think they believe that growing up without technology was better because like you said, they can blame societal problems on technology as opposed to when they were growing up and they could choose to ignore these problems. However, I also don't think it is fair that I'm making these assumptions because I did not experience growing up with technology. Overall, this was a very interesting post and I agree that technological determinism is a suitable perspective to analyze this reading because of how people worry about new technologies.

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