The Impact of Science and Technology on Social Groups

INTRODUCTION
 The preceding analysis of one of the components of the total influence of science and technology obscures an important
fact:

 That influence is far from uniform across social groups

CHILDHOOD
 The situation of children has been profoundly affected by technology, from the agricultural societies of the Middle Ages to
the contemporary electronic and computer society
 In the Middle Ages, childhood, as modern industrial society conceives of it, did not even exist.
 There was no culturally shared idea of young people between birth
 Children were not sheltered from certain kinds of labor or particular secrets (at that time), such as ones concerning sex,
violence, and death.
 The invention of the printing press using moveable type in the late Renaissance not only undermined the authority of the
Catholic Church; it transformed childhood.
 Overtime, childhood was invented as a distinctive stage of life bridging infancy and adulthood
 It began with the task of learning how to read and continued until that task was completed (at age 13)
 School was the institution created in order to teach people how to read
 It took the young, who had mastered speech, and segregated them from the infants and adults
 Over the next few centuries the special educational regimen deemed appropriate for people in this “natural” (actually
technologically engendered) stage of life was elaborated into beliefs that there were special things children should know
and not know
 The socially constructed idea of childhood as a distinct life-stage and the cultural institution of school was rooted in the
fact that since reading has a complex symbolic grammar,
o it took time (childhood),
o effort (discipline),
o and help (school) to master.

 The new specialness of children was reflected in a number of important changes in the lot of children in the industrial era.
 Legislation was eventually passed that forbade full-time childhood work and banned outright certain kinds of dangerous
work as incompatible with childhood specialness and its central literacy task
 Consequently, technology has made the lives of children in industrialized societies physically easier.
 Some writers content that 20th century electronic media are contributing to the erosion of the valuable traditional dividing
line between childhood and adulthood
 Books vary greatly in syntactical and lexical complexity, a feature long utilized in attempting to keep children from
premature exposure to certain kinds of highly charged, potentially disturbing knowledge (or information)
 On the other hand, television does not possess any formal grammatical prerequisites that must be mastered prior to
gaining access to the material it offers; hence that material is relatively equally accessible to adults and children.
 Print media may sustain the line between childhood and adulthood, however, the electronic media seem to be eroding the
distinction.
 There is, however, abundant solid evidence about the influence of television on children
 According to studies, television may retard the development of children’s:
o Reading skills
o Produce lower scores on standardized creativity test
o Intensifies the sex-typing of children’s sex-role attitudes
o Gives rise to heightened persistent aggressive behavior (verbal & physical)
 There is some evidence that two other modern technics, one “high” and one low”, may be exerting subtle but important
influence on children:
o Computer
o High-rise apartment building
 Sherry Turkle has identified three phases in children’s relationships with computers:
1. Metaphysical Phase (exhibit intense interest in the computer- is it think or alive?)
2. Mastery Phase (exercising effective control over the computer-gaming or programming)
3. Identity Phase (computers induce self-creation and self-reflection through use of the programs they
write-with a reliable companionship without emotional demands)
 Turkle suggests that the three childhood relationships to the computer prefigure the respective characters of the most
important communities of adult computer users:
o The Artificial Intelligence Community – whose members persue metaphysical philosophical interests in
whether it is possible to create machines capable of human intelligence
 o The Hacker Community – whose members delight in composing programs that carry out complex tasks of
mastery and control
o Community of Home Computer Users – whose members ground parts of their identities in the ownership and
use of personal computers
 Surprisingly, the high-rise apartment building also seems to influence children’s lives:
o Living in such structures may deleteriously affect psychological development
 Between the ages of 2 and 7, a major developmental task for children is to achieve a satisfactory balance of autonomy
and dependence in everyday experience.
 Completion of this task is important if the child is to gradually attain a sense of competence and independence.
 An important way in small children develop an embryonic sense of autonomy is through excursion and explorations
without the presence but within the sight of parents, followed by return safety of the parents.
 The high-rise apartment building is strongly biased against this possibility
 Alice Coleman wrote that high-rise-bred children "cannot cope with the stairs or lifts alone, nor is it safe to leave them
alone on shared lawn open to strangers or to roads with traffic.
 Yet parents cannot constantly supervise the passage of the toddler's development.
 Roger Hart stated that this may result into a
 "an all-or-nothing approach. Either the parents relinquish care and let their children play anywhere they wish or they take
overprotective route of keeping them inside the apartment all of the time (which may result to a depressed child).
 A study of children living in New York City high-rises found that most were not allowed out to play by themselves until they
were 10 yrs. old.
 Coleman states that high-rise-bred children, having "more cooped up indoors" and having missed a "crucial stage in the
development of self-confidence, seems [to be] more vulnerable to peer pressure and gang behavior."

ELDERLY

 The development of medical science and technology has improved the healthcare services, sanitations, and medical
treatments of 21st century
 This development paved way for better understanding, treatment, and cure to illnesses and diseases which resulted to
improve the life chances of people in modern societies
 Consequently, resulted into the improvement of life expectancy and increased the density of elderly people in the
population.
 Example:
In 1986, the average life expectancy for Americans was 74.9yrs, compared with 47yrs. in 1900.
 In fact, nine of the ten nations with the highest percentages of people over 65 years of age are industrial societies.
o Sweden - 17.8%
o USA - 12.2%
 However, this remarkable achievement has not been an unmixed blessing--considering the situation with life-sustaining
medical technology
 More than half of the patient (in the US) who receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation and tube feeding (and other life
extending healthcare services) are over 65 year of age
 Which crowded the hospitals and may prolong the suffering of such elderly patients and their family (especially those in
coma) from financial and psychological burden
 Also, in the 20th century transport revolution enables people in the United States to live at great distances from, and to visit
periodically with, their elderly parents.
 Even where children do not live at great distances from their elderly parents, the growth of two-career family and the
single-parent mothers has lessened the extent to which children provide personal care for their elderly parents.
 This, together with the availability of sufficient disposable income, has created a situation in which many elderly are
consigned to "nursing homes," an Institutional innovation of the industrial era
 In such homes, the elderly are segregated from youth and younger adults, are apt to atrophy intellectually, and serve little
or no meaningful social function
 Another dark side of technology induced longevity in the society, is the longer-living elderly run the real risk of being
perceived as obsolescent, otiose, and even parasitic on society
 The rapidity of technological change is an important factor in this cultural devaluation
 The prevailing "initial social conditions" --the absence in industrialized countries of substantial institutional provision for
helping or encouraging the elderly to stay abreast of technical changes—also contribute greatly to their being perceived as
socially useless (resulting to phenomenon) as "generation gap".
 Influence of Modern Society on Science and Technology: Effects and Types of Influence

 In recent years, the range of aspects of scientific and technological activity affected by the exercise of societal influence
has been expanding.
 This raises the question of whether any aspect of scientific or technological activities or practice is likely to remain
immune from restrictive societal influence in the foreseeable future.
 There are six (6) major kinds of changes that societal forces have made in science and technology:
1.Direction Selection
2.Technic Constitution
3.Process Specification
4.Technic Production
5.Technic Diffusion
6.Technic Use

1. Direction Selection:
 Societal force external to science and technology play an important role in determining the directions in which these
enterprises move, thereby influencing the rates of progress in different areas of science and technology.
 Depending on the attitudes of government, business, or the public, one or another project, area, or approach may be
selected over another for sustained funding, benign neglect, or outright prohibition.
 Example:
•US government's long-standing support of development work on an artificial heart, particle physics research, solar
technology, AIDS research.

(Here the public and private economic interests exercises decisive direct or redirected effects on the enterprises of
science and technology.)

 A serious concern here is whether the increasing directive pressures on science and technology to serve short-term
socioeconomic interests will dilute the long-term fruitfulness of these factors.

2. Technical Constitution:
 Although it is not often recognized, societal forces sometimes influence the very make-up or constitution of the products--
knowledge, individual technics, and technological systems--generated by science and technology.
 Among the kinds of societal factors that sometimes influence technological design are political-economic power struggles,
class and racial prejudice, and concerns over widespread social values.
 Example 1 (Political-Economic Struggles):
•Automatically Controlled Machine Tools:
•“Numerical Control” (N/C) option over the “record-playback” option.
•The extensive U.S. Air Force subsidization of the development of N/C technology and the considerations of cost and
profit in the aircraft industry played noteworthy roles in that triumph.
 Example 2 (Class and Racial Prejudice):
•Planning of the Long Island Bridge in New York City by Robert Moses:
•He designed the arches of the bridge to be too low to accommodate public buses except in the centermost fastlane in
each direction.
•Moses specified bridge clearance heights that made it more difficult for poor, minority people, who tended to rely on
public transportation (via buses), to reach these prime facilities.
•He wished to reserve the state parks and beaches tjat je jad developed on Long Island for use by the prosperous white
people who mostly traveled by private automobiles
 Example 3 (Concerns of Social Values):
•Social Values on Public Safety:
•Microwave Ovens sold in the United States:
•Must have two inner door locks--one concealed--such that they shut off automatically when opened.
•Besides required design elements or equipment, government agencies also often establish performance standards,
sometimes on the ver same products.
•--children's pajamas sold in the U.S. must meet a mandated flammability standard;
•new microwave ovens must emit no more than 1 milliwatt of radiation per square centimeter at a distance of 5 centimeter.

3. Process Specification:
 In recent years societal forces have succeeded in affecting not only some ancillary processes accompanying the carrying
out of a piece of scientific or technological work, but also, in some cases, the very structure of the research process itself.
 For example the U.S. Animal Welfare Act, federally supported research work using animal subjects must adhere to certain
guidelines governing the care and experimental use of animals.
 Certain kinds of engineering projects, federally funded or not (e.g., nuclear power plants), may not commence normal
operations without detailed testing having first been done and been scrutinized by appropriate governmental authorities
(e.g., the NRC or Nuclear Regulatory Commission).
 In short, the increasingly sensitive and potent nature of much contemporary scientific and engineering work has made the
scrutiny accorded the processes of technical practice increasingly comprehensive and prescriptive.
4. Technic Production:
 Besides direction-setting, product-constituting, and process-specifying influences, societal forces, namely government,
also affect the manufacture of certain products and materials.
 The reason society has undertaken to influence this phase of contemporary scientific and technological activity, one which
many individuals believe should be left up to the firms and markets involved, is that the economic, political, and physical
potency of many of the products involved is such that wider societal health and economic interest must be protected.
 With a narrow but important range of products, governments limit who can manufacture what, and under which conditions.
 Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons are cases in point.

5. Technic Diffusion:
 For political or economic reasons, governments sometimes attempt to foster or impose strict limits on the dissemination
and diffusion of the products of scientific and technological activity (e.g., knowledge, technics, and technical system).
 Techniques used by governments to promote diffusion (or innovations adopted by a population) of favored technics
include tax credits for consumer purchase and subsidization (or pay part of the cost of producing something to reduce
prices for the buyer) of purchase prices.
 Example:
•In 1982, the French government fostered a innovated diffusion with the “Minitel” videotext online service at a national
level.
•Seeking to move its people and state-owned telecommunications industry into positions of leadership in the information
era.
•With the hardware, telephone users can access Minitel, a network that allows them to exchange messages with other
users, carry out banking transactions, access an electronic telephone directory and train schedules, get stock market and
weather reports, do home shopping, and use various other information services.
 Diffusion controls include banning the distribution of certain products outright or to specified parties, banning the diffusion
of certain informational products through specified channels, and limiting product distribution to those who agree to abide
by certain conditions regarding their use and possible redistribution.
 Example: (In the U.S.)
1.Prescription of the fetus-deforming drug thalidomide and sale dangerous metal-tipped “lawn darts” and three-wheeled
all-terrain vehicles have been banned outright or curbed by various government regulatory agencies.
2.Alcoholic drinks, tobacco products, and firearms may not be sold to people under certain ages.
 Another method of diffusion control is through “product recalls” --government orders to manufacturers to recall for repair,
refund, or replacement products that a cognizant government agency has concluded pose a threat to consumer health or
safety.
 Example:
•In August of 2007, Fisher-Price recalls licensed character toys due to lead poisoning hazard (luckily the company quickly
volunteered to recall their products, otherwise the U.S. government would have forced them to recall all their products with
lead content and sanctioned them for violating the safety standards).
 While some diffusion control limit the domain into which a scientific or technological innovation may be disseminated,
others limit the speed of the diffusion process.
 Example:
•Normal Food and Drug Administration policy is to keep experimental drugs and new medical devices from the
marketplace until they have passed tests deemed sufficient to prove their safety and efficacy
 However, innovations that may pose a threat to public health and safety aside, the tendency of national governments in
Western industrial societies has been to steer clear of limiting diffusion rates and leave that to the marketplace (until
proven that it is hazardous).
 This is a reflection of the laissez-faire tradition.

6. Technic Use:
 In recent decades governments have begun to increase regulation of the use of technics and technical systems.
 Rather than banning the diffusion of sometimes controversial technologies or products outright, thereby foregoing such
advantages as they may offer.
 Governments of industrialized countries have tended to impose selective limits on the use or uses of the products in
question, in hopes of having it both ways.
 In some instances, specific uses of technics or systems have been prohibited.
 Example: (In the U.S.)

Legislation has been proposed in some states to prohibit businesses from using the telephone network to offer
pornographic-message services.
 A different tack is that restricting the conditions under which a technology may be used, regardless of the use or uses
selected.
 Example 1:
•In 1988, the Legislature of Suffolk County, New York, enacted the first legislative regulation in the U.S. of the increasingly
widespread technology of the video-display terminal (VDT).
•The use of VDTs by permanent employees who work more than 26 hours per week in companies with more than 20 such
terminal require special lighting, adjustable chairs and desks, detachable keyboards, 15-minute break for users every 3
hours, and annual user eye examinations, 80 percent of the costs of which are to be paid by employers.
 Example 2:
•During a 1987 smog alert, Athens restricted private automobile use to either odd- or even-numbered days, depending on
the vehicle's license plate.