ASSIGNMENT : Social Impact of Technology
Instructions
Relying solely on the material in your course, use your own words in order to write a short comparison and contrast essay that defines and explains three distinct perspectives on the evolution of technology.
As you write, imagine you are talking to a friend who has no knowledge of this topic. In short, write the way you speak, using a conversational tone. Also, try to alternate short sentences and longer sentences to make your writing more readable.
Before, during, or after you've completed your essay, be sure to create a title and cite yourself as the author. For example:
A Comparison of Three Perspectives on the Evolution of Technology
Heather Jones
Your essay should have 5 paragraphs. Paragraph 1 is your lead paragraph. It will contain an overview of what you have to say in comparing and contrasting the perspectives of Gerhard Lenski, Leslie White, and Alvin Toffler with respect to the evolution of technology.
Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, are your body paragraphs. In your essay, paragraph 2 should describe the perspective of Gerhard Lenski.
In paragraph 3, you'll write about the perspective of Leslie White.
In paragraph 4, you'll describe and discuss the perspective of Alvin Toffler.
Paragraph 5 is your summary and conclusion paragraph. Here, you will compare the three perspectives to show how they are, or may be, similar.
You'll contrast the three perspectives to describe how they are different. You will end this process - and your essay - by expressing your view as to which theorist or theorists offer the most useful insights into the evolution of technology.
Approaches to Measuring Technological Progress
Sociologists, anthropologists, and other scholars and intellectuals have developed distinct approaches to understanding the nature of technological progress.
We'll discuss four important theorists in this section of the lesson. They represent four perspectives on the relationships between technological development and our social world.
Gerhard Lenski
Sociologist Gerhard Lenski maintained that technological progress has been the driving force in the evolution of human civilization. In effect, civilization and technological progress go hand in hand.
In this regard, the key to human progress is information. In particular, the more we know about how to harness and utilize the resources of the natural world, the greater our ability to advance the interests of human societies. He recognized four stages of communication.
• Stage 1 is the passing on of genes from generation to generation. You might call this biological communication.
• Stage 2 is sentience. As we develop our abilities to understand and become aware of the world around us, our adaptation to Earth's environments is facilitated. We are able to share our experience.
• In Stage 3, we become capable of logic. Now we can serve collective goals based on observation and fact-based analysis. For example, if dark clouds gather on the horizon, we can normally assume that rain can be expected.
• In Stage 4, humans master language, writing, and the capacity for creating symbols. At this stage we have the foundation of civilization.
Lenski also proposed four levels of technological development.
• At the hunter-gathering level, existence is a hand-to-mouth effort to reduce food insecurity.
• At the next level, part of the food supply comes from what amounts to horticulture.
• At the next level, we have organized agriculture. Food surpluses allow for the rise of complex social orders, including social class inequality and a complex division of labor that lends itself to technological advances in arts, crafts, architecture, and civil engineering.
• With the industrial revolution, the food-based economies are replaced by a new kind of social class inequality and revolutionary advances in the means of production.