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Modern Technology
Modern Technology
INTRODUCTION
In the study of science and technology in society, the modern world, spanning from the 1940s to the
present day, is an overwhelming, yet enriching period to study. Although the 1940s and the 2020s are
both considered modern, the average person today would most likely find himself or herself living a very
different life in the 1940s. Those differences would regard heavily debated subjects, such as societal
views on medical care and defense, as well as daily subjects of entertainment and communication. With
changing societal views, science and technology have progressed to satisfy society’s needs and wants.
These changes in society brought about by advances in medical care, defense, cybersecurity,
entertainment, and communication define our lives today. The modern era has seen and will continue to
see extensive changes in society that are driven by politics, religion, and essential events calling for
significant developments in science and technology, which has given society the life it gladly accepts
today. By the end of this chapter you will be able to understand magnitude and presence of science and
technology in the modern era. These ideas will be expanded upon in the following sections, starting with
the question: What has science looked like in the modern world?
SCIENCE
In the 21st century alone, scientists have been able to detect gravitational waves on the moon,
sequence the genome of a cancer patient, and create human organs using stem cells (“10 Greatest
Scientific Discoveries and Inventions of 21st Century | ISB Glasgow,” n.d.). However, perhaps one of the
most influential discoveries in the scientific community was the ability to see particles at
the atomic and molecular level. Thus, the field of nanoscience was born, and ever since, there has been
an influx of scientific developments that have been translated into technology directly affecting human
life. The discovery of nanoscience has led to advances in the fields of computing and engineering, which
has the potential to change the gap of accessible healthcare technology between socio-
economic classes.
“Magnetic Nanoparticles for Clinical
Diagnostics and Therapy” by Aihua Fu, Ph.D. and Shan X. Wang, Ph.D. is in the Public Domain, CC0
The word “nano” stems from a Greek origin meaning dwarf, which proves to be applicable when
measuring particles that are one billionth of a meter. One of the original scientists to use the term
nanotechnology described the concept as having a goal to manipulate single atoms and molecules for
the production of macroscale products (Bardosova & Wagner, 2013). In the early 1980s, two scientists at
IBM Research in Zurich developed the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM), which allowed materials to
be imaged and manipulated at the atomic level (Baird & Shew, 2004). This allowed scientists and
researchers to see smaller structures than ever before, and since then, a wide variety of fields have been
impacted. In the US specifically, the establishment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI)
federally funded by institutions such as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense,
and the National Institutes of Health, has created a push for innovation in the areas of physical,
chemical, biological, and materials engineering (Roco, 2003). Nanoscience and nanotechnology is a
rapidly growing field in the modern period of engineering, physics, and computing.
Currently, some of the significant applications of nanoscience are being used in the Biomedical and
Biological Engineering fields for a wide range of applications, including disease therapies, vaccines, and
even personalized medicine. Emerging as a subfield of Biomedical Engineering, the research area of drug
delivery has readily adopted the use of nanoscience. Through the use of nanoparticles ranging in the size
of 10 to 1000 nanometers in diameter, researchers can deliver therapeutics such as pharmaceuticals,
proteins, and even RNA encapsulated in nanoparticles for the treatment of many diseases including
cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The term nanoparticle is perhaps quite vague, as nanoparticles can
be synthesized using polymers, peptides, and lipids, as well as other synthetic and biological materials.
Nanoparticles are advantageous as drug delivery vehicles because they can be readily taken up by cells,
they provide a steady release of drugs, and targeting moieties can be incorporated to help nanoparticles
deliver their cargo at a specific site in the body (Sahoo & Labhasetwar, 2003). Nanoparticles can
be conjugated with cell-specific ligands that will carry the nanoparticle to where the matching receptor
is overexpressed. For example, a nanoparticle could be tagged with a specific motif that would bind to
cancer cells overexpressing a particular receptor on the cell membrane, and it would not be targeted to
healthy tissue to avoid common side effects of chemotherapeutic drugs.
One of the newer advances in nanoscience and healthcare is the field of personalized medicine.
Usually, when a patient is diagnosed with a disease, there is one pharmaceutical or treatment for the
disease, and each patient diagnosed with the said disease is given the same treatment. However, with
the genetic testing that is now available, scientists can predict which drugs will be more beneficial for
individual patients and tailor effective patient therapies towards smaller populations with different
genetic profiles (Vogenberg et al., 2010). Another avenue of personalized medicine therapies comes
from stem cells. Stem cells are characterized by their ability to grow into multiple types of cells, and in
the early 2000’s it was discovered that basic cell types could be reprogrammed into
induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that are capable of forming functional tissue-specific cells (Chun
et al., 2011). For example, a patient’s stem cells could be collected, reprogrammed in a laboratory to
grow into a different cell type, and implanted back into the human body to treat a disease or injury. This
method is advantageous because it limits the adverse side effects that come from introducing foreign
materials into the human body.
It seems as if the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology is the future of modern medicine, but it
begs the question, can this help everyone? The development of personalized medicine could be
widening an already significant gap in access to health care between socio-economic classes. Take, for
example, a developing country that does not have the infrastructure or essential utilities to support
modern laboratories or patients with enough income to pay for personalized therapies that are
doubtfully cost-effective. Do these patients have the same access to therapies compared to patients
living in first world countries with research institutes that receive billions of dollars in funding each year?
Some scientists argue that personalized medicine has benefits in eliminating health disparities, such as
developing targeted therapies for certain ethnic groups that share common disease characteristics
(Brothers & Rothstein, 2015). However, it would be naïve to say that patients in developed countries will
not benefit more from personalized medicine than developing countries.
Nanoscience is the future of many disciplines with the ability and potential to affect human life on a
large scale. Currently, the globe is experiencing a boom in the use of nanoscience that has the potential
to cure incurable diseases and provide better healthcare to developing countries. Whether or not these
technologies will be accessible to all is an issue that will undoubtedly be impacted by figures outside the
scientific community, such as legislation and national regulations, as more and more technologies arise
from nanoscience.
TECHNOLOGY
POLITICS
The events of the 2016 presidential election revealed the power that social media technology
possesses in society through its influence of public opinion using algorithms that can influence what a
social media user sees. These algorithms can cause news-feed echo chambers, dark posts, and bots.
Social media has only recently become politically relevant due to its beginnings coming in the early
2000s. Social media sites use news-feed algorithms to order posts that appear on a user’s feed
(Barnhart, 2019). Social media has woven itself into many parts of our lives– sometimes in unexpected
ways. One crucial part of our society that has been changed forever by social media is politics. A
particularly profound demonstration of the relationship between politics and social media took place
during the 2016 presidential election.
RELIGION
Many factors drive the advancements of science and technology in society today. Currently,
resources, knowledge, prosperity, and ambition are influences in the decisions to create, investigate,
and look for answers and solutions to the problems in the world. One controversial technology has been
used in the field of medicine. The scientific breakthrough of new reproductive technology (NRT) has
been used to treat infertility around the world and is rapidly spreading. Many religions have various
viewpoints on NRT. Christianity, which is composed of Catholics and Protestants, is the most prominent
religion in North America. It has affected new reproductive technology in three different ways:
supporting the means to overcome infertility, encouraging more research in the field, and discouraging
its future use.
The modern era saw the rise of technologies such as reproductive technology, the television, man-
made satellites, personal computers, and many more. However, there is a specific event that triggered
significant technological advancements in medicine and society. With the end of the Second World
War and the rise of nuclear weapons, tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States of
America rose, which gave rise to the Cold War. This Cold War led to an arms race and growth of nuclear
weapons between the Soviets and Americans; these tensions also spread into space. When the Soviets
launched the world’s first artificial satellite into space, the United States felt the pressure building, and
the Space Race began between the two major powers. During the Space Race, the United States not
only landed on the Moon, but they were able to develop groundbreaking technological advancements.
“Launch of Apollo 11” by NASA is licensed
under CC BY-SA 2.0
A quick recap: Germany’s instability after the First World War led to the rise of Adolf Hilter and
his Nazi Party. Hitler anointed himself as the supreme leader of Germany in 1934. He and his National
Socialist Party broke the Versailles Treaty, which was a peace treaty that ended World War I, by
rearming Germany and its military. Later, Hitler and Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union at the
time, signed a pact, and the Soviet Union and Germany invaded Poland from the East and West. Great
Britain and France, who have promised military support to Poland if ever invaded, declared war on
Germany, which ignited the start of WWII. In 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact,
which became the Axis alliance. Later in German-occupied Poland, more than 6 million Jews would be
murdered during the Holocaust, mass genocide of European Jews from 1941-1945. On December 7,
1941, Japanese aircrafts attacked a major United States Naval Base in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which led
to the United States entering the Second World War against the Axis alliance. On June 6, 1944, also
known as “D-Day,” the Allies began the invasion of Europe by landing troops on the beaches of
Normandy, France, which signified German defeat. In order to finalize the war with the remaining Axis
power, Japan, the United States crafted some nuclear weapons, called atomic bombs, that would later
be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The war promptly ended as the Japanese agreed upon
the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, a statement that called upon the surrender of the Japanese
armed forces (Gilbert, 2014).
Taking a step back before the Second World War was over, the Allied powers held a conference to
decide on how to carry on after the war. During this conference, tensions grew between President Harry
S. Truman and dictator Joseph Stalin because they were both suspicious of each other’s intentions,
especially since Truman made Stalin aware that the United States had created nuclear weapons through
their discreet program called the Manhattan Project. These rising tensions helped give birth to a
tension-driven period called the Cold War. Over the next few years, after World War II ended, the Soviet
Union began experimenting with nuclear weapons. By the 1950s, the two superpowers, the Soviet
Union and the United States of America, grew their nuclear arsenal to the point where they could
destroy each other (Oreskes & Krige, 2014; McDougall, 2008). With the stress of nuclear weapons and
the spread of communism breathing down America’s shoulders, the United States started to feel the
pressure. The competition between the Americans and the Soviets did not stop on the land, air, and sea;
the competition extended to the final frontier: space. The two superpowers explored beyond our world
to see how it could benefit their cause, and on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first
man-made satellite, Sputnik I, into Earth’s orbit. The United States felt this achievement was an
immediate threat as the ballistic missile, Soviet R-7, that launched Sputnik could potentially drop a
nuclear missile onto American soil. In 1958, the United States created the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, better known as NASA, and the Space Race began. In 1959, the Soviets launched
a space probe that crashed into the Moon. In 1961, the Soviets sent the first man to space, Yuri Gagarin,
and he orbited around the Earth. In response to all of the Soviet’s achievements, President John F.
Kennedy pledged to have America land on the Moon before the Russians. After a few Apollo missions to
space, the Apollo 11 mission began on July 16, 1969; this mission was the first lunar landing attempt. On
July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong, a U.S. astronaut, is the first man to step on the Moon. The Space Race
ended as the Americans were the first to land on the Moon (Getchell, n.d.). Landing on the Moon gave
Americans hope for a prosperous future as The New York Times reporter states in January 1960, “I can
picture a flourishing civilization on the moon twenty or thirty years (after landing on the moon)” (Levitt,
1960).
The word “computer” has been in use since the early 1600s when it described a person, rather than a
machine, who performed computations. This definition stayed the same until the 19th century when
the industrial revolution saw the invention of machines with the primary purpose of performing
calculations. Since then, computers have come a long way, allowing us to access vast amounts of
information, stay in contact with people across the globe, and they have even helped send people to the
moon. The computer is one of the most significant technological inventions of modern times. Its
creation has changed the way society operates in professional and even personal settings. They have
also expanded the overall knowledge of the human race through their computational power and the
ease with which they can share information.
“IBM PC 5150” by Boffy B, Wikipedia
is in the Public Domain
Charles Babbage conceptualized the first computer in 1822. It was called the Difference Engine, and it
was designed to compute several sets of numbers and print out the results. However, because of
funding, a full-scale version was never completed. The first fully functional, programmable modern
computer did not come until 1938. The Z1, created by German Konrad Zuse, was created in its inventor’s
parents’ living room and is considered the first electromechanicalbinary programmable computer. It
took eight years after that for the completion of what we consider to be the first “modern” computer.
The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania. It
weighed almost 50 tons and is the first example of a fully functional digital computer. Since then,
computers have come a long way. Modern versions are exponentially smaller and more powerful. Most
people have a computer light enough to fit in their backpack, but with over one thousand times the
processing power of the ENIAC. Computers today continue to get smaller and lighter while increasing
processing power at a breakneck speed. Where the ENIAC was not even able to store its programming
commands, computers today often have dozens of gigabytes of memory; some even have terabytes of
space. Initially, many people were uncomfortable around computers. The term “computerphobia” was
used frequently in the ’80s to describe people who held this anxiety towards them, with many
publications even offering tips for how to treat it. The term “computerphobia” retained its popularity
until the ’90s when people’s technological fears turned from computers to the internet itself.
The development of the internet is arguably the most significant advancement in the history of
computers. Computing power and storage used to be limited to the single computer it was found on,
which limited their usefulness. During the 1970s and 1980s, small networks started to pop up, limited to
a single university computer science department or a business. It was not until 1990 when the first
recognizable form of the internet as we know it was invented by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee.
The falling cost of disk space meant that system administrators could set aside vast amounts of storage
to host data that could be shared globally in conjunction with the internet. This allowed vast amounts of
knowledge to be spread throughout the world, along with software being developed at a much faster
pace since collaboration became significantly more comfortable. Nowadays, the internet is a part of all
of our lives. We use it to keep in touch with friends across the globe, along with its usage for standard
day to day entertainment.
Computers have entirely changed the way our society works. One significant result of their creation
and popularity has been some economies shifting from manufacturing to service jobs. Completely new
job categories have had to be created to service and implement computer technologies. The networking
ability of computers has also allowed businesses to relocate to more remote locations than before.
Information processing tasks like payroll and record management can now be easily automated by a
computer when they used to require hours of work by a person or group of people. In the field of
weather forecasting, our current understanding of weather is almost entirely dependent upon
computational models. Biological research now starts with a predictive model that helps determine
what to explore in the real world. The computational power of computers has completely changed the
way we approach tasks in society.
Due to computers, humans have been able to make accomplishments that our predecessors would
never have even dreamed of. Their power and versatility have allowed us to map out some of the
deepest parts of the ocean while also helping take us to the moon itself. Then, the invention of the
internet unlocked almost infinite possibilities for their use. Distance has become almost meaningless
when we can communicate nearly instantly, and vast amounts of knowledge that used to be confined to
one location can be accessed by people all over the globe simultaneously. Without them, we would not
be anywhere near as advanced of society as we are today
Human beings have always been naturally curious about the world that surrounds them. As homo
sapiens began to evolve and their intelligence increased, they broke out of their original habitats to
explore the surrounding world. After years of evolution and exploration, homo sapiens covered the
world, establishing societies on every corner of the planet. As time continued, these societies advanced,
and homo sapiens continued to explore the untouched peaks and valleys of the earth. These amazingly
intelligent explorers had explored the world, but soon they turned their eyes to exploring the hidden
heavens of the sky. In the early 1600s, the first telescope was invented to look at the heavens, and
human society has been entranced with the idea of space ever since. A Soviet scientist finally achieved
the ability to travel into space and the idea of space exploration by the name of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
in 1903. Tsiolkovsky solved his famous rocket equation that was able to calculate the accurate fuel to
weight ratio that was needed to successfully propel a rocket outside of the earth’s atmosphere into the
depths of space. As time went on, humans were able to integrate this equation into more advanced and
different technologies. These advancements fueled the creation of many different modern technologies
that are used in everyday life of society now. Along with the advances in modern society’s technology,
space exploration has advanced in many ways as well. Space exploration has evolved from being a
government-owned entity that could send small satellites into orbit to being able to build an
International Space Station that humans can live in for an extended period. Even public companies like
SpaceX and Boeing are joining the coalition of space exploration. This ability of society to explore the
depths of space has led to an unbelievable breakthrough in the advancements of modern technology
and scientific studies, that many people do not realize, has allowed for the lives that society is living
today.
The study and exploration of space have had a drastic effect on modern life down on earth. Many
technologies that are used in everyday western life would not even be possible without the idea of
space travel. This is because space exploration needed advancements in technology to allow humans to
travel further and stay in space longer. These advancements made through space exploration include
areas of modern life such as health and medicine, transportation, public safety, consumer goods, and
environmental resources. In the field of health and medicine, space exploration has helped humans
understand the effect of zero gravity on the human body. In turn, this understanding has helped develop
better health practices back under the weight of gravity, allowing humans to be healthier than the times
before space exploration.
Along with helping understand the human body better, NASA funded many studies on creating
artificial limbs and muscles that, in the past few years, have begun to translate over to basic medicine.
This has allowed humans that have had a limb amputated to be replaced with advanced robotic limbs.
Another impactful technology created by NASA to help study deep space was the MRI machine that was
later released to the public and is now used every day, saving people’s lives. In the field of
transportation, NASA funded a study done by Goodyear to develop a rubber that would be strong
enough to help land a rover on Mars. This rubber created to land on Mars was then released later to the
public to produce more durable tires on cars, reducing the amount of tire blowout and making daily
travel safer.
Along with helping create safer tires, space exploration has also helped drive improvements in the
field of public safety. One of the main improvements in public safety that space exploration has helped
drive is in the field of video enhancements and analysis programs. NASA developed computer programs
to help produce better quality videos and to be able to analyze videos frame by frame to help study
deep space better. The public now uses this technology to help assist law enforcement in producing
quality video footage of any crimes allowing for a safer public. For the modern consumer, NASA helped
fund many different products that are used in human’s everyday lives. One of these products, patented
in 2000 and released to the public in 2005, is the Bowflex workout machine. This project was funded by
NASA to help reduce atrophy of muscle mass and loss of bone density of astronauts that spend long
periods in space by allowing them to do resistant style workouts in zero gravity. Five years after its
creation, NASA released the designs to the public, and the item became a huge hit. Finally, space
exploration helped develop some of the most important technology that is being rapidly adopted by
many humans around the world, environmental resources technologies. These technologies include
many things, such as solar panel cells, water purification systems, and pollution control technologies.
Even without knowing it, many humans use technology that was created for space exploration, and, as
time continues, the exploration of space will continue to drive our civilization into a more
technologically advanced society.
The study of science and technology in society underscores the idea that society and its needs drive
the progression of technology (Feenberg, 2012). Furthermore, society chooses the technologies it will
accept, allowing them to succeed, and the technologies it will reject, causing their failure and often their
obsolescence. Innovations in space exploration, detailed above, developed because of the societal need
for advanced defense, communication, and research. The technology that developed from those needs
was determined by society to solve their problems while offering little to no disadvantages, so society
accepted space exploration and technology. Societal needs, however, change with time. A highly
anticipated technology designed to satisfy the needs of modern society was Google Glass, depicted in
the figure below. Although the technology was successful and useful, it was discontinued only one year
after it was released due to society’s apprehension towards its possible applications (Donnell, 2018). The
following detailed dive into the failure of Google Glass is useful in emphasizing society’s influence on
innovation as it pertains to the modern era of technology. Specifically, in the modern era, privacy
concerns dictate the new technologies society will accept, which is evident in the failure of Google Glass.
As mentioned in the paragraph above, although it eventually failed, Google Glass Edition 1 was created
to solve societal issues of the modern era. The goal of these glasses was to act as a hands-free
smartphone. It would allow the user to access the internet, camera, maps, calendar, apps, and other
smartphone features solely through voice and motion commands (Pogue, 2013). These functions would
not only allow convenience, but they would promote modern concerns, such as hands-free driving. This
product would also keep pedestrians safe by preventing phone use and walking near busy streets or on
crowded sidewalks. Although society and its needs drove the invention of Google Glass Edition 1, as it
does most other technologies, this product did not take into consideration other societal needs that
would eventually lead to its failure: privacy concerns.
Modern ideals and morals of society, specifically about privacy concerns, lead to the downfall of
Google Glass. Invasion of privacy in the modern world is defined as “the unauthorized collection,
disclosure, or other use of personal information as a direct result of electronic commerce transactions”
(Wang et al., 1998). Market concerns with Google Glass regarded not only personal information,
however, but also the information of bystanders. Since the technology utilized a camera mounted to a
person’s head, it recorded not only the wearer’s voice but also their surroundings. This capability meant
that anyone could be subject to recording or streaming at any time.
Although these glasses intended to solve societal issues, society soon realized that the wearer indeed
determined the purpose of the glasses. A user of Google Glass could use the technology to record
movies in theaters illegally or cheat in casinos (Davis, 2014; Doyle, 2016). They could also discreetly take
or stream photos and videos of individuals who never consented to be objectified in such away.
Furthermore, even if the wearer was not using the glasses maliciously, no one knew what Google was
doing with the data, photos, and videos it collected (Essers, 2013). Because of these privacy concerns,
Glass wearers were barred from many restaurants and bars to ensure the guests of such establishments
felt safe and protected (Davis, 2014; Weidner, 2020). As mentioned above, society dictates which
technologies fail and succeed, and society’s concerns about Google Glass, and its actions in defense of
those concerns, eventually caused the product’s failure.
In the wake of Google Glass’s failure, Google learned from society and compromised with it in order
to use the same technology in an accepted manner. Google quickly reacted to the failure of Glass by
discontinuing the product in 2015, which was only one year after its release (Donnell, 2018). They
realized, however, that although society did not accept Google Glass, the technology was sound,
innovative, and useful. Google announced in 2019 that they are now developing Google Glass Enterprise
Edition 2, which is geared toward business professionals and industry (“Glass – Glass,” n.d.). This new
use is an attempt to make the technology successful by compensating for societal concern. Bystanders
will no longer be subjected to unwanted filming from Google as the new product will be in private
offices and factories rather than on public streets. This reintroduction of Google Glass to society in a
different way with a different user might allow for its success, which underscores the idea that society
dictates accepted technologies.
This case study of Google Glass is useful in discussing the idea that society chooses whether new
technologies are accepted or rejected. Google has recognized this dependence on society for success,
and they are working to compromise with societal privacy concerns to develop a successful technology.
Although society rejected Google Glass Edition 1 based on privacy concerns, societal concerns of health
and safety called for the innovation’s development. If the reintroduction is successful, Google Glass
Edition 2 will be used to benefit the health, safety, and ergonomic efficiency of employees in offices and
factories.
CONCLUSION
As discussed above, society has chosen which scientific and technological developments will define
the modern world. Modern politics, religion, events, and society’s values of safety, privacy, exploration,
health, and communication have driven technological progress in those respective fields. Although these
sections have only been an overview of modern world STS, they serve as an introduction to the
following in-depth studies of modern technology. While reading each subsequent section, think about
these fundamental ideas: society’s effect on science technology, science and technology’s effect on
society, aspects of society that drive technological and scientific advancement, and what causes society
to accept or reject a particular advancement.