Impact of Technology Change Industrialization: Technology has contributed to the growth of industries or to the process of indu strialization.

Industrialization is a term covering in general terms the growth in a society hitherto mainly agrarian of modern industry with all its circumstan ces and problems, economic and social. It describes in general term the growth o f a society in which a major role is played by manufacturing industry. The indus try is characterized by heavy, fixed capital investment in plant and building by the application of science to industrial techniques and by mainly large-scale s tandardized production. The Industrial Revolution of 18th century led to the unp recedented growth of industries. Industrialization is associated with the factor y system of production. The family has lost its economic importance. The factori es have brought down the prices of commodities, improved their quality and maxim ized their output. The whole process of production is mechanized. Consequently t he traditional skills have declined and good number of artisans has lost their w ork. Huge factories could provide employment opportunities to thousands of peopl e. Hence men have become workers in a very large number. The process of industri alization has affected the nature, character and the growth of economy. It has c ontributed to the growth of cities or to the process of urbanization. Urbanization: In many countries the growth of industries has contributed to the growth of citi es. Urbanization denotes a diffusion of the influence of urban centers to a rura l hinterland. Urbanization can be described as a process of becoming urban movin g to cities changing from agriculture to other pursuits common to cities and cor responding change of behaviour patterns. Hence only when a large proportion of i nhabitants in an area come to cities urbanization is said to occur. Urbanization has become a world phenomenon today. An unprecedented growth has taken place no t only in the number of great cities but also in their size. As a result of indu strialization people have started moving towards the industrial areas in search of employment. Due to this the industrial areas developed into towns and cities. Modernization: Modernization is a process which indicates the adoption of the modern ways of li fe and values. It refers to an attempt on the part of the people particularly th ose who are custom-bound to adapt themselves to the present-time, conditions, ne eds, styles and ways in general. It indicates a change in people's food habits, dress habits, speaking styles, tastes, choices, preferences, ideas, values, recr eational activities and so on. People in the process of getting themselves moder nized give more importance to science and technology. The scientific and technol ogical inventions have modernized societies in various countries. They have brou ght about remarkable changes in the whole system of social relationship and inst alled new ideologies in the place of traditional ones. Development of the means of transport and communication: Development of transport and communication has led to the national and internati onal trade on a large scale. The road transport, the train service, the ships an d the aero planes have eased the movement of men and material goods. Post and te legraph, radio and television, newspapers and magazines, telephone and wireless and the like have developed a great deal. The space research and the launching o f the satellites for communication purposes have further added to these developm ents. They have helped the people belonging to different corners of the nation o r the world to have regular contacts. Transformation in the economy and the evolution of the new social classes: The introduction of the factory system of production has turned the agricultural economy into industrial economy. The industrial or the capitalist economy has d ivided the social organization into two predominant classes-the capitalist class and the working class. These two classes are always at conflict due to mutually

opposite interest. In the course of time an intermediary class called the middl e class has evolved. Unemployment: The problem of unemployment is a concomitant feature of the rapid technological advancement. Machines not only provide employment opportunities for men but they also take away the jobs of men through labor- saving devices. This results in t echnological unemployment. Technology and war: The dangerous effect of technology is evident through the modern mode of warfare . The weaponry has brought fears and anxieties to the mankind. They can easily d estroy the entire human race reveal how technology could be misused. Thus greate r the technological advancement the more risk for the mankind. Changes in social institutions: Technology has profoundly altered our modes of life. Technology has not spared t he social institutions of its effects. The institutions of family, religion, mor ality, marriage, state, property have been altered. Modern technology in taking away industry from the household has radically changed the family organization. Many functions of the family have been taken away by other agencies. Marriage is losing its sanctity. It is treated as a civil contract than a sacred bond. Marr iages a re becoming more and more unstable. Instances of divorce, desertion and separation are increasing. Technology has elevated the status of women but it ha s also contributed to the stresses and strains in the relations between men and women at home. Religion is losing hold over the members. People are becoming mor e secular, rational and scientific but less religious in their outlook. Inventio ns and discoveries in science have shaken the foundations of religion. The funct ion of the state or the field of state activity has been widened. Modern technol ogy have made the states to perform such functions as -the protection of the age d, the weaker section and the minorities making provision for education, health care etc.Transportation and communication inventions are leading to a shift of f unctions from local government to the central government of the whole state. The modern inventions have also strengthened nationalism. The modern governments wh ich rule through the bureaucracy have further impersonalized the human relations . Cultural Lag: To provide a law of social change comparable to the laws of physics and biology that William F. Ogburn in 1922 advanced his theory of social lag.Ogburn pointed out that social changes always originate in the invention by some individual of a new way of doing something new to do. So far he was following in the tradition established by Gabriel Tarde; but Ogburn then began to wander in the tracks of Marx, Historically, he argued, inventions occur most often in the field of mater ial technology, if only because the advantages of an improvement in technology a re self-evident. With each development in technology there comes, however, some disturbance to the effective working of the existing social order. A strain or s tress is set up between the new technique and various organizational aspects of the social system, changes in which come slowly if at all; the result, disequili brium between new technology and old social organization, is social lag. The cor e of Ogburn's theory is the idea that change first occurs in the material techno logy. Social Movements: Social Movement is one of the major forms of collective behaviour.We hear of var ious kinds of social movements launched for one or the other purpose. A social m ovement can be defined as collectively acing with some continuity to promote or resist change in the society or group of which it is a part. Horton and Hunt hav e defined it as a collective effort to promote or resist change.Smelser defines it as organized group effort to generate or resist social change. According to M

.S.A Rao social movement includes two characteristics. Collective Action: Social Movement involves collective action. However it takes the form of a movem ent only when it is sustained for a long time. This collective action need not b e formally organized. But it should be able to create an interest and awakening in relatively large number of people. Oriented towards social change: A social movement is generally oriented towards bringing social change. This cha nge could either be partial or total. Though the movement is aimed at bringing a bout a change in the values, norms, ideologies of the existing system, efforts a re also made by some other forces to resist the changes and to maintain the stat us quo.The counter attempts are normally defensive and restorative rather than i nnovative and initiating change. They are normally the organized efforts of an a lready established order to maintain itself. According to Yogendra Singh social movement is a collective mobilization of peop le in a society in an organized manner under an individual or collective leaders hip in order to realize an ideologically defined social purpose. Social movement s are characterized by a specific goal which has a collective significance ideol ogical interpretation of the collective goal a rank of committed worker and stro ng leadership.Social movements have a life-cycle of their own origin, maturity a nd culmination.T.K Oomen observe that a study of social movements implies a stud y of social structure as movements originate from the contradictions which in tu rn emanate from social structure. He states that all social movements centre aro und three factors- Locality, Issues and social categories. Anthony Wallace view social movement as an attempt by local population to change the image or models they have of how their culture operates. An important component of social movement that distinguishes it from the general category of collective mobilization is the presence of an ideology. A student s trike involves collective mobilization and is oriented towards change. But in th e absence of an ideology a student strike becomes an isolated event and not a mo vement. A social movement requires a minimum of organizational framework to achi eve success or at least to maintain the tempo of the movement. To make the disti nction clear between the leaders and followers to make clear the purposes of the movement to persuade people to take part in it or to support it, to adopt diffe rent techniques to achieve the goals - a social movement must have some amount o f organizational frame-work. A social movement may adopt its own technique or me thod to achieve its goal. It may follow peaceful or conflicting, violent or nonviolent, compulsive or persuasive, democratic or undemocratic means or methods t o reach its goal.Evolutionary Theories Evolutionary theories are based on the assumption that societies gradually chang e from simple beginnings into even more complex forms. Early sociologists beginn ing with Auguste Comte believed that human societies evolve in a unilinear waythat is in one line of development. According to them social change meant progre ss toward something better. They saw change as positive and beneficial. To them the evolutionary process implied that societies would necessarily reach new and higher levels of civilization.L.H Morgan believed that there were three basic st ages in the process: savagery, barbarism and civilization.Auguste Comte's ideas relating to the three stages in the development of human thought and also of soc iety namely-the theological, the metaphysical and the positive in a way represen t the three basic stages of social change. This evolutionary view of social chan ge was highly influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of Organic Evolution. Those who were fascinated by this theory applied it to the human society and arg ued that societies must have evolved from the simple and primitive to that of to o complex and advanced such as the western society. Herbert Spencer a British so ciologist carried this analogy to its extremity. He argued that society itself i s an organism. He even applied Darwin's principle of the survival of the fittest to human societies. He said that society has been gradually progressing towards

a better state. He argued that it has evolved from military society to the indu strial society. He claimed that western races, classes or societies had survived and evolved because they were better adapted to face the conditions of life. Th is view known as social Darwinism got widespread popularity in the late 19th cen tury. It survived even during the first phase of the 20th century. Emile Durkhei m identified the cause of societal evolution as a society's increasing moral den sity.Durkheim viewed societies as changing in the direction of greater different iation, interdependence and formal control under the pressure of increasing mora l density. He advocated that societies have evolved from a relatively undifferen tiated social structure with minimum of division of labor and with a kind of sol idarity called mechanical solidarity to a more differentiated social structure w ith maximum division of labor giving rise to a kind of solidarity called organic solidarity. Cyclical theories: Cyclical theories of social change focus on the rise and fall of civilizations a ttempting to discover and account for these patterns of growth and decay.Spengle r, Toynbee and Sorokin can be regarded as the champions of this theory.Spengler pointed out that the fate of civilizations was a matter of destiny. Each civiliz ation is like a biological organism and has a similar life-cycle, birth, maturit y, old-age and death. After making a study of eight major civilizations includin g the west he said that the modern western society is in the last stage i.e. old age. He concluded that the western societies were entering a period of decay as evidenced by wars, conflicts and social breakdown that heralded their doom. Toynbee: Arnold Toynbee's famous book 'A study of History' (1946) focus on the key concep ts of challenge and response. Every society faces challenges at first, challenge s posed by the environment and later challenges from internal and external enemi es. The nature of responses determines the society's fate. The achievements of a civilization consist of its successful responses to the challenges; if cannot m ount an effective response it dies. He does not believe that all civilizations w ill inevitably decay. He has pointed out that history is a series of cycles of d ecay and growth. But each new civilization is able to learn from the mistakes an d to borrow from cultures of others. It is therefore possible for each new cycle to offer higher level of achievement. Sorokin: Pitirin Sorokin in his book Social and Culture Dynamics - 1938 has offered anoth er explanation of social change. Instead of viewing civilization into the terms of development and decline he proposed that they alternate of fluctuate between two cultural extremes: the sensate and the ideational. The sensate culture stres ses those things which can be perceived directly by the senses. It is practical, hedonistic, sensual and materialistic. Ideational culture emphasizes those thin gs which can be perceived only by the mind. It is abstract, religious concerned with faith and ultimate truth. It is the opposite of the sensate culture. Both r epresent pure types of culture. Hence no society ever fully conforms to either t ype. As the culture of a society develops towards one pure type, it is countered by the opposing cultural force. Cultural development is then reversed moving to wards the opposite type of culture. Too much emphasis on one type of culture lea ds to a reaction towards the other. Societies contain both these impulses in var ying degrees and the tension between them creates long-term instability. Between these types lies a third type 'idealistic' culture. This is a desirable blend o f other two but no society ever seems to have achieved it as a stable condition. Functionalist or Dynamic theories: In the middle decades of the 20th century a number of American sociologists shif ted their attention from social dynamics to social static or from social change to social stability.Talcott Parsons stressed the importance of cultural patterns in controlling the stability of a society. According to him society has the abi

lity to absorb disruptive forces while maintaining overall stability. Change is not as something that disturbs the social equilibrium but as something that alte rs the state of equilibrium so that a qualitatively new equilibrium results. He has stated that changes may arise from two sources. They may come from outside t he society through contact with other societies. They may also come from inside the society through adjustment that must be made to resolve strains within the s ystem. Parsons speaks of two processes that are at work in social change. In sim ple societies institutions are undifferentiated that is a single institution ser ves many functions. The family performs reproductive, educational, socializing, economic, recreational and other functions. A process of differentiation takes p lace when the society becomes more and more complex. Different institutions such as school, factory may take over some of the functions of a family. The new ins titutions must be linked together in a proper way by the process of integration. New norms must be established in order to govern the relationship between the s chool and the home. Further bridging institutions such as law courts must resolv e conflicts between other components in the system. Conflict theories: Whereas the equilibrium theories emphasize the stabilizing processes at work in social systems the so-called conflict theories highlight the forces producing in stability, struggle and social disorganization. According to Ralf Dahrendorf the conflict theories assume that - every society is subjected at every moment to c hange, hence social change is ubiquitous. Every society experiences at every mom ent social conflict, hence social conflict is ubiquitous. Every element in socie ty contributes to change. Every society rests on constraint of some of its membe rs by others. The most famous and influential of the conflict theories is the on e put forward by Karl Marx who along with Engel wrote in Communist Manifesto 'al l history is the history of class conflict.' Individuals and groups with opposin g interests are bound to be at conflict. Since the two major social classes the rich and poor or capitalists and the proletariat have mutually hostile interests they are at conflict. History is the story of conflict between the exploiter an d the exploited. This conflict repeats itself off and on until capitalism is ove rthrown by the workers and a socialist state is created. What is to be stressed here is that Marx and other conflict theorists deem society as basically dynamic and not static. They consider conflict as a normal process. They also believe t hat the existing conditions in any society contain the seeds of future social ch anges. Like Karl Marx George Simmel too stressed the importance of conflict in s ocial change. According to him conflict is a permanent feature of society and no t just a temporary event. It is a process that binds people together in interact ion. Further conflict encourages people of similar interests to unite together t o achieve their objectives. Continuous conflict in this way keeps society dynami c and ever changing.