Technology's Future Psychological Impact

[David Sklansky]

A hundred years ago technology had only a minor impact on the day to day lives of people. Furthermore at least 20% of the population had at least a vague understanding of those technolgies along with the ability if, need be, to grasp them more fully.

Now, and even more so in the not too distant future, technology will have a major impact on peoples's lives. And only maybe five percent of the population will have even the most cursory understanding of how the gadgets that almost eveyone will be so dependent on, works. Even fewer will be smart enough to have any hope of fully understanding their underlying pricnciples and even fewer still, actually will.

I wondering what effect this will have on thinking people.

I agree that as technology becomes more advanced the origines of those technologies become forgoten. Even the people who know how to build certain parts in say, a computer, don't know how to construct the entire computer from the very essentials of which it is composed. Sciences become more and more specialized and this makes it difficult for anyone to be a complete generalist. If we were to go into another Dark Ages like period of little scientific progress or suffer some catastrophy, would anyone know where to begin to rebuild?

However I dissagree in that technology has had a large impact on the day to day lives of humans even prehistoricaly. Any practical application of science is technology so humans have been implementing it for a long time and often not understanding it. Most people don't understand the chemical reaction behind fire, but this does not stop them from utilizing it.

[BluffTHIS!]

I think your statement about 100 years ago is in error, as there were major technological changes, relative to what they had before in each previous decade, although not as great a leap perhaps as the pace of technological progress now. And I think your 20% figure for back then is generous.

But it is clear that you are right that the pace of technology means that there will never again be true (I hate to use this cliched term) "Renaissance Men", that is those who have a fundamental grasp of all areas of science and mathematics. The width and depth is just too large for one man to master. But even today, a Nobel laureate in mathematics or physics is unlikely to have spent the time to have an excellent knowledge of transitors, medical biology, or other fields outside his own expertise. He certainly is smart enough to understand them if he would spend the effort, it just is that it is more productive to specialize and have a depth of knowledge in one or two fields, than to have a shallower knowledge of many. There are of course exceptions regarding those who manage technologies for enterprises and such, who don't need a detailed knowledge, but do need to be conversant about a range in order to make production and resource allocation decisions.

The pace of computer technology is one of the best examples of all of this. I owned one of the first micro-computers to come out, an Apple II, and had a good programming ability back then in various computer languages (which today aren't widely used). Back then, my computer knowledge was significantly above that of the average person, whether he owned a computer or not. Now, virtually everyone knows how to use a computer because of the ease of use of graphical user interfaces which make it no longer necessary to need to know comand line operating system procedures. And even though I am not up to speed in the programming procedures of today, I do read magazines and net articles to keep up on the general technologies, and so am still above the average user. And I know where to go to for expert knowledge if I need it as I occasionally do.

The point of your question though, is what is the psychological impact upon people, even very smart ones, who will be able to use various technologies, but not really have a grasp of how they work. This will be true across every type of common technology we use. One only has to look at automotive technology to see that the day of the shade tree mechanic is over, not because necessarily he can't understand the technology, but because the tools needed to work on it are so specialized and expensive that it does not pay to do so for just oneself. And we live in a frustrating time where it is cheaper to throw away many defective products, than to fix them, even assuming a willingness and knowledge to do so.

So the thinking person is going to have to be content with having a shallow knowledge of most areas, while specializing in one or two. And he will have to trust the opinions of experts in other fields in order to know both what technologies should be used and how, but also to make political decisions regarding the impact of such technologies (one only has to look at the debate over global warming to see this and competing scientific viewpoints).

Even though there might be a certain amount of psychological frustration in all levels of society over an inability to comprehend the workings of everyday gadgets, those people will likely still just count it a plus to be able to have those gadgets. And the internet will provide even as it does now, an easy way to tap expert knowledge when needed. The computer technical forum here is a very good example of that, even thoough it is low level compared to other internet computer technical forums.

Look at the average man, and even the well educated man of 100 years ago. He had seen in the previous decades the growing use of electricity, natural gas heat, and railroads. He was about to see the emergence of automobiles and airplanes. He might not have understood all of that, but nonetheless was content with a better quality of life afforded by being able to use them. I think that in the future it will be the same.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
A hundred years ago technology had only a minor impact on the day to day lives of people.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree completely. Technology dominated peoples' lives one hundred years ago exactly as much as it does today. Every facet of every moment of every day in 1905 involved technologies in manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, etc. Every human being in western civilisation in 1905 covered themselves with manufactured goods, made their homes from manufactured tools, was employed in some task that required manufactured goods, etc. Boots, buttons, cloth, knives, guns, glasses, buggy whips, plows, machines, everything. In fact, man is defined by his technology. Without our technology we are naked apes, shivering and being eaten by bears.

Just yesterday it occured to me that everthing in the modern world, literally hundreds of billions of manufactured items, is the end result of an unbroken chain of manufacture that muse go back a minimum of seven to ten thousand years, possibly longer. Modern goods are made from tools and machines that were made with tools and machines that were made with tools and machines . . . The last time that tools themselves were created from nothing but new, raw materials available in and on the Earth, and the application of nothing but human labor, had to be many thousands of years ago. It could be argued that certain native tribes in North America and elsewhere around the globe that still practiced raw toolmaking traditions like stone knapping are exceptions. But I would argue that those tool lineagaes are almost certainly extinct. Modern tools like manufactured knives have completely replaced native toolmaking traditions.

[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore at least 20% of the population had at least a vague understanding of those technolgies along with the ability if, need be, to grasp them more fully.

[/ QUOTE ]

I doubt this as well. Did 20% of the population in 1905 know how to manufacture gun powder, a thousand year old technology? Did 20% of the population know how to make steel? How to weave cloth? Manufacture paper? How to build and operate a steam engine? How to make a gun? And to the extent that there was some fraction of the population "vaguely familiar" with the principles behind these technologies, I would argue that percentage has not dropped in the modern populace (as poor as our education system is, there is still bound to be 20% of the population that succedes in spite of it).

I would argue that in 1905 the division of labor was as absolute as it is now, and that few people worried about how the locomotive worked or how to make gun powder, unless they worked on locomotives or at a gun powder plant.

As for technologies becoming ever more intricate with ever fewer people able to understand them, we already have that. A modern airliner is so complex that no one member of the team of engineers that designs it has a complete understanding of every component and scientific principle behind the design. Engines are ordered from engine manufacturers that meet certain specifications. It weighs so much, consumes so much fuel, produces so much thrust, etc. The people designing the wing most likely have only a rudimentary understanding of the mechanics of the engine, and the people who made the engine probably have only a rudimentary understanding of wing design. The human factors engineers who design the cockpit have little understanding of aerodynamics and lift, or hydraulic controls, or landing gear design, etc.

[ QUOTE ]
Now, and even more so in the not too distant future, technology will have a major impact on peoples's lives. And only maybe five percent of the population will have even the most cursory understanding of how the gadgets that almost eveyone will be so dependent on, works. Even fewer will be smart enough to have any hope of fully understanding their underlying pricnciples and even fewer still, actually will.

[/ QUOTE ]

Paradoxically I think you're being both to harsh on people and too generous. I think that we're already at the point where the majority of people have only a rudimentary understanding of how the technologies we're dependent on work, but I believe that if not most, at least a good chunk of people do in fact have that rudimentary understanding. Which, given the division of labor, is probably more than they require at all.

[ QUOTE ]
I wondering what effect this will have on thinking people.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suspect very little.

As others have no doubt said the idea that technology did not impact strongly on people's lives a hundred years ago is incorrect. Even such simple technology as agriculture profoundly changed everyone's life forever. It created war and allowed for a huge increase in humanities population. None the less, technology is increasing in an exponential rate. Until one hundred years ago almost all inventions made by man were really just a few simple machines put together. Now, we have incredibly complicate devices capable of doing incredibly complicated things. This trend will continue for a long time, so long as humanity survives the next few centuries. This will have an incredible effect on our society in ways we cannot accurately predict at the moment.

[ QUOTE ]
there will never again be true (I hate to use this cliched term) "Renaissance Men", that is those who have a fundamental grasp of all areas of science and mathematics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed, in mathematics alone nobody has had a substantial grasp of much of the field since around the turn of the last century, and the men I am thinking of, Hilbert and Poincare, were geniuses of the highest caliber.

[ QUOTE ]
But even today, a Fields Medalist in mathematics or a Nobel laureate in physics...

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP.

[ZeeJustin]

[ QUOTE ]
In fact, man is defined by his technology. Without our technology we are naked apes, shivering and being eaten by bears.

[/ QUOTE ]

Clearly you are using a very broad definition of the word technology, and this has nothing to do with the topic David is trying to discuss.

[Borodog]

I believe that I'm using the only reasonable definition of technology; products and the tools used to create them that make life longer or easier.

[imported_luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
I wondering what effect this will have on thinking people.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not much on thinking people, but it's much easier to succeed today and not be a thinking person so there'll be less of them by percentage.

The effect of not getting plenty of exposure to the application of 'the nature of things' is an increased susceptability to magical thinking. The current rise in astrology is caused by the same lack of a good grasp of scientific principles as it was 200 years ago.

Two hundred years ago the overall scientific knowledge was much less and it's availability to the general population was low. Today, the scientific knowledge is huge but the availability/need for it by the general population is low. It's like it's not there again.

Prepare for more magical thinking.

[Lestat]

The biggest problem as I see it (and as it relates to me personally), is modern man's refusal to read a set of instructions.

I am still reeling from the psychological ramifications of getting my ipod to download properly.

I understand what you are saying about technology a hundred years ago not having a big effect on people's lives. As many posters have said, this is erroneous, but this could be a matter of semantics more than a conceptual error. Back in the good ol' days a far greater percentage of the general populace understood the workings of their basic implements, as there were few extremely complex examples outside the realm of academia that had far reaching effects.
Obviously the railroads and firearms industries are the best examples of technologies being implemented by massive numbers of the general public without an acute understanding of the minutiae involved. Yet even the simpleton of the day had an understanding of how to utilize these tools, just not how to produce them.
The concept David is attempting to elucidate is one more subtle. Correct me if I am wrong, but this seems to be a matter of our world shifting more and more towards a division of labor society. One of the last men to be a true expert in every field of academia was Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz, and he was an intrepid genious of the first class. The world since his time has become more complex on an astronomical scale and at a staggering pace. It is simply impossible for anyone to be able to learn, in intricate detail, the dynamics of our modern world.
The concept does not end here, it only shows how, as the world becomes more intricate, we will find ourselves more and more detached from our own sustaining technologies.
The psychological effect will be one of universal bewilderment. Except for those who sink into their own area of expertise, and maintain only a working knowledge of those things whoxh are required for our mutual survival.

I want to keep thinking and writing, but responsibilities pull me away

Cambraceres

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
I wondering what effect this will have on thinking people.

[/ QUOTE ]

They will have more to think about.

Stu

[ZeeJustin]

[ QUOTE ]
I believe that I'm using the only reasonable definition of technology; products and the tools used to create them that make life longer or easier.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet again, you have missed the point entirely.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I believe that I'm using the only reasonable definition of technology; products and the tools used to create them that make life longer or easier.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet again, you have missed the point entirely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Enlighten me.

[The4Aces]

i think he is talking about like computers and stuff. the digital age.

[peritonlogon]

I'm not sure if I'm off topic in this reply, but an inquiry about the changing roles of technology in people's lives and people's understandings of those technologies, must include the concept of technologies and tools as "extensions of man" as put forth by Marshal McLuhan in "Understanding Media." (a book which has more B.S in it than any book I've taken to read seriously since I read Aristotle). I think that, right now, we're at a point where the precise way in which technology will become part of us is unclear. As an analogy for what I mean by this, the tool that delivers a blunt, quick force underwent much transformation before it became the hammer that is used by carpenters today that is carried around with instant access for the dominant hand that also doubles as a prybar/nail puller. But electronic technology is much more complex, and there are many many more paths it could take before it becomes as seamless in our existence as the carpenter's hammer is in his. The Ipod, a few new multipurpose devices like camera phones and perhaps even Skype, are offering already a dramatic movement toward seamlessness, and they are really just the begining. So exactly how technology will change people's lives is still unclear as exactly how the technology will change is not determined yet.

As far as people's understanding of the technology they use goes, I think one major difference with electronic technology is that, even if someone knows a lot about a thing, and understands it well, often that person just can't fix it. So, along with there being a lack of understanding of the technology and it's general principles, there is also a lack of power over it even for those who do understand the thing. This change almost gives the electronic tools in our lives a life of their own (albiet a disposable life). Along with this life like quality, the experience I feel when the Internet is down/cuts out, or I have to run a virus scan or restart my computer is not unlike dealing with a person in my life that is bothering, ignoring, or leaving me. There's anxiety, helplessness and the results of pure rage are usually quite bad. I have never had experiences that mimic people with any other type of technology, not cars, books, powertools etc. I think the reason for this is that interacting with information technology often does not allow a person to have mastery over the tool. It feels like we are at the mercy of this thing which often feels like it has a will of it's own, but in any case we are its servant and we are forced to come to terms with this in a way no other technology has required us to do.

[Peter666]

Obviously technology will turn us into unsociable blithering idiots as its major end conciously or subconciously has always been the creation of an anatomically correct sex robot available en masse for masturbation purposes. We have almost reached the zenith.

[peritonlogon]

I liked a lot of what you had to say on this issue. This part bothers me though.

[ QUOTE ]
One only has to look at automotive technology to see that the day of the shade tree mechanic is over, not because necessarily he can't understand the technology, but because the tools needed to work on it are so specialized and expensive that it does not pay to do so for just oneself. And we live in a frustrating time where it is cheaper to throw away many defective products, than to fix them, even assuming a willingness and knowledge to do so.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is a bit of conventional wisdow that has come down the line and is largely false. First, the reason why many of the very sepcialized tools exist to fix your car is so that 1) the job of fixing your car can be deskilled and therefore require a lower paying job and 2) so that people have to return to the dealers to have their car diagnosed so that you are required to return and spend more money THERE.

Secondly, the reason that we throw so many things away and that it is considered cheaper to do so is a result of consumerism, not the technology. Things are made so that the same product can be sold again and agian. In fact, the primary reason why people lack the willingness to do fix things is a product of consumerism and marketing efforts. The world we see in America today is not the only one that could have been with the technology we have. Social movements have had a big impact on the form our technology has taken.

[KeysrSoze]

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously technology will turn us into unsociable blithering idiots as its major end conciously or subconciously has always been the creation of an anatomically correct sex robot available en masse for masturbation purposes. We have almost reached the zenith.


[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, exactly. Star Trek, for instance, is really off-base. If humanity had ready access to replicators and holo-decks there sure would be less of that whizzing about the galaxy that the show depicts. Hmmm, go on risky exploration missions to study boring gaseous anomalies light years away, or stay in my virtual heaven banging super-models for the rest of my life? Tough decision. I think Ian Banks "the Culture" series hints at this some: 99.99% of the population would be shut-ins letting automated systems run things, leaving a handfull of non-conformist misfits to muck about on starships and such. Of course, the "not satisfied with fake reality" gene is going to be selected and prosper after a few generations to counter this.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I believe that I'm using the only reasonable definition of technology; products and the tools used to create them that make life longer or easier.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet again, you have missed the point entirely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Enlighten me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Still waiting.

[peritonlogon]

Star Trek also has this odd notion that in the future everyone will have productive hobbies like playing in a string quartet or doing biology experiments, have no desire to accumulate things or power, go around do-gooding and genrally live in a happy, productive, and well informed Marxist society.

[KeysrSoze]

Marxist? Really? Maybe Stalinist, but from my view it looks more like classical fascism. From wikipedia, characteristics of fascism are
1) a very high degree of nationalism
we all know how how they like to pontificate about how great their Federation is and is the height of human achievement and all. Their prime directive itself views pre-warp societies as primitive and beneath them, deserving no aid.

2) centralized control of private enterprise
Starfleet seems to run everything. They control energy production and land aquisition at least, the only thing that matters in an free-energy economy.

and, after it attains political control of a country, involves 3) a powerful, dictatorial state that views the nation as superior to the individuals or groups composing it.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

It might look Marxist because with anti-matter and replicators theres really no need for hard currency, but the state still sticks its nose in everyones business and controls the capital of the future economy, and it certainly isn't a classless society (even lowly ensigns are gods among men and are shagging Ashley Judd). Anyway, fascism and modern communism are just two sides of the same authoritarian coin.

[BluffTHIS!]

I was cathing up on my magazine reading today, and in the latest issue of PC Mag there was a reader letter repsonding to a writer bemoaning the fact that most computer users really didn't understand how their computers worked or how to maintain them and protect them security wise I assume. But he used the analogy that someone who buys a new car might not understand the difference between carbuerization and fuel injection, but he doesn't really care because that doesn't matter to his use of it.

I think that will always be the attitude of the majority of people toward everyday technological products they use. Of course a better understanding would allow them to get a higher level of use in many cases, and also to spot the early signs of malfunctions which could get much worse.

[andyfox]

Seems David is asking what the psychological effect will be on the 5% who have a cursory knowledge of how the then-current technology works and/or the smaller percentage that have a hope of understanding the underlying principles.

I suppose it will be the same as it's been throughout history. Those who think they know more than others, and that the others will never be smart enough to hope to know what they (the smart ones) know, will look down on the dummies, and think that their smartness means that they can do anything better than the less smart. Indeed, they can, in the sense that, as David has pointed out, smarter people, all other things being equal, will do a better job at anything.

But if the gap between the knowledge of the smart and the lack of knowledge of the less smart widens, and the smart realize this, there may be a psychological hubris that causes the smart to forget that not everything is equal and that they cannot simply apply their smartness to all areas or situations without care and deep thought.

[Goodnews]

The effect is simply an angrier, meaner IT technicians cursing the 95% of the populace. Ironically, these 95% are to be thanked for giving the IT guys employment.

FWIW this trend is nothing new, in fact it is the natural cycle of any technology. A search on Technoology S-Curves will lead to a realization that many engineers and inventors rarely make the jump from old to new technology since many have invested much time into being an expert at their chosen field.

[Shandrax]

The future will be a repetition of the past. Around 1900 technology was advancing at such rapid speed that it changed everyone's live and made them jobless. People were either rich or extremely poor. Then came the war....

It will be just like that. Technology will take over in all areas and push people out of their jobs. They will be poor, there will be revolutions or at least the attempt of it. In the end the USA and China will fight a nuclear war over world trade, price dumping and the last resources.

Hopefully we will be all dead by then, so we don't have to go through this apocalypse.

[Rduke55]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A hundred years ago technology had only a minor impact on the day to day lives of people.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree completely. Technology dominated peoples' lives one hundred years ago exactly as much as it does today. Every facet of every moment of every day in 1905 involved technologies in manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, etc. Every human being in western civilisation in 1905 covered themselves with manufactured goods, made their homes from manufactured tools, was employed in some task that required manufactured goods, etc. Boots, buttons, cloth, knives, guns, glasses, buggy whips, plows, machines, everything. In fact, man is defined by his technology. Without our technology we are naked apes, shivering and being eaten by bears.

Just yesterday it occured to me that everthing in the modern world, literally hundreds of billions of manufactured items, is the end result of an unbroken chain of manufacture that muse go back a minimum of seven to ten thousand years, possibly longer. Modern goods are made from tools and machines that were made with tools and machines that were made with tools and machines . . . The last time that tools themselves were created from nothing but new, raw materials available in and on the Earth, and the application of nothing but human labor, had to be many thousands of years ago. It could be argued that certain native tribes in North America and elsewhere around the globe that still practiced raw toolmaking traditions like stone knapping are exceptions. But I would argue that those tool lineagaes are almost certainly extinct. Modern tools like manufactured knives have completely replaced native toolmaking traditions.

[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore at least 20% of the population had at least a vague understanding of those technolgies along with the ability if, need be, to grasp them more fully.

[/ QUOTE ]

I doubt this as well. Did 20% of the population in 1905 know how to manufacture gun powder, a thousand year old technology? Did 20% of the population know how to make steel? How to weave cloth? Manufacture paper? How to build and operate a steam engine? How to make a gun? And to the extent that there was some fraction of the population "vaguely familiar" with the principles behind these technologies, I would argue that percentage has not dropped in the modern populace (as poor as our education system is, there is still bound to be 20% of the population that succedes in spite of it).

I would argue that in 1905 the division of labor was as absolute as it is now, and that few people worried about how the locomotive worked or how to make gun powder, unless they worked on locomotives or at a gun powder plant.

As for technologies becoming ever more intricate with ever fewer people able to understand them, we already have that. A modern airliner is so complex that no one member of the team of engineers that designs it has a complete understanding of every component and scientific principle behind the design. Engines are ordered from engine manufacturers that meet certain specifications. It weighs so much, consumes so much fuel, produces so much thrust, etc. The people designing the wing most likely have only a rudimentary understanding of the mechanics of the engine, and the people who made the engine probably have only a rudimentary understanding of wing design. The human factors engineers who design the cockpit have little understanding of aerodynamics and lift, or hydraulic controls, or landing gear design, etc.

[ QUOTE ]
Now, and even more so in the not too distant future, technology will have a major impact on peoples's lives. And only maybe five percent of the population will have even the most cursory understanding of how the gadgets that almost eveyone will be so dependent on, works. Even fewer will be smart enough to have any hope of fully understanding their underlying pricnciples and even fewer still, actually will.

[/ QUOTE ]

Paradoxically I think you're being both to harsh on people and too generous. I think that we're already at the point where the majority of people have only a rudimentary understanding of how the technologies we're dependent on work, but I believe that if not most, at least a good chunk of people do in fact have that rudimentary understanding. Which, given the division of labor, is probably more than they require at all.

[ QUOTE ]
I wondering what effect this will have on thinking people.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suspect very little.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can't believe I read this excellent (IMO) post after that awful one in Politics.

I agree with Borodog's stance here.
David's original post seems to have a lot of modern bias in it. Technological spurts similar to today's have been occuring pretty frequently. Look at the industrial revolution. It changed people's lives in a ton of ways. What about the telegraph? Trains? Mass production of antibiotics? Within the 100 year mark but out of the digital age: automobiles, flight, radio, TV?
And I agree that the 20% figure seems very high.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't believe I read this excellent (IMO) post after that awful one in Politics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps you should reconsider your interpretations of the post in Politics then.

[Rduke55]

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[ QUOTE ]
I can't believe I read this excellent (IMO) post after that awful one in Politics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps you should reconsider your interpretations of the post in Politics then.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. Very different subjects.