Social determinism clarifies that innovation is controlled by the cultural needs or the general public. On the other hand, technical determinism says technical logic determines the technological artefacts and in turn these artefacts changes or shapes society. In short, technical determinism claims a machine has power of humans while social determinism claims human beings have power over machines. Additionally, social determinism offers credit to the people, that, is we have hands that control the PC and orders the PC what to do, moreover, we are the knowledge behind the innovation of the PC.
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The term slave is defined by the Oxford learner’s dictionary as a person who is strongly influenced by something that they cannot make individual decisions. To say human being ae slaves to technology is far fetched because human beings can make decisions on their own. For example, the first electric car was invented around 1890-91 by William Morrison, combustion engine cars were still popular around that time and even though this new technological concept had been developed with better characteristics compared to combustion engine cars, they stuck to combustion engine cars. Of recent, electric cars are popular because the society has started to accommodate the, the need for the arouse, this shows that human beings have a choice; to follow each new technology or not. Today, electric cars are the new popular thing but not everyone bought it or uses it, this shows human being have the final say on who uses technology.
Long distance communication used to be difficult but today it can be listed as one of the easiest things. Communication used to be via telegrams and the number of words determined the amount one had to pay in order to have the message delivered. Over time phones were invented, messages could be sent, and calls could be placed if both the recipient and the sender were covered by the same cellphone towers. Communication outside cellphone tower resulted and extra charge thus the was less freedom in talking to our loved ones. The internet era began, the days not only can one call but they can video call someone from a different continent and the duration does not determine the charge. Did this drastic change, change the way we live? Yes, it did because we now have the freedom to contact our people. Also, as the people realized the power of the internet, the nomadic 9-5 jobs could be done over the internet, usually referred as ‘working from home’ instead of showing up at work. This proves that technology does have a role in the way we live.
Both technical and social determinist have one thing is common, they both address human needs. For example, a refrigerator evolved from the concept of electricity and it purpose was to keep cool thing cool, on the other hand mankind wanted to preserve and they used methods like drying but the refrigerator did the same job of drying thus a need was a addressed and at the same time a way of preserving was changed too.
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In conclusion, technicality and society will always have an interplay, we create tools and tools make us who we are, but we still have a choice; just like today some people still dry the meat as a way of preserving while they have refrigerators. This is to say human beings are not slaves to machines, we made machines, we control them and we acknowledge their role in our lives as they make our daily lives easier and at the end of the day a human conscious will not worry about the latest technology but about who we love and trust.
