Introduction
Conflict theory, which studies social tensions, is the best model to examine the influence of technology on the modern world, elucidate its negative effects on societies, and find ways to resolve them. Sociology uses various models to describe society and the processes occurring in it. One of them is a conflict theory, which describes various types of those tensions: between poor and rich, a majority and different minorities, and social groups with multiple nations, races, gender, and social status. Technology is a significant and actual topic for the modern world, as it is the source of modern people’s prosperity. Examples are electricity, efficient and affordable medicine, the possibility of being connected with other people online, and many cheap goods produced by machines. Still, the negative aspect of technologies includes unequal access to them and, thus, the rise of competition, social stratification, and conflicts. At first, the sociological perspective in general will be explored; then, conflict theory and its appliance to technology-related issues will be described, and ways to solve those issues will be discussed.
Theoretical Sociological Perspective
Sociology models people as parts of society and explores various forces which motivate people to behave in a certain way. Examples are personal choices and social forces: while the former contributes to one’s personality and psychology, the latter is connected with social norms and influences of other people (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2019). Together, they drive people to act in a certain way, and sociology aims to describe those ways and explore the most beneficial of them.
There are two main types of social theories: macro-level and micro-level theories. The former class explores social forces on a broader scale, while the latter focuses more on people’s personal choices (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2019). For example, functionalist theory, an example of a macro-level theory, divides society into active structures and explores the cooperation between them. Another example, conflict theory, is the more negativistic approach, which focuses on tensions and conflicts between various social groups and classes. A symbolic interaction model is an example of the micro-level theory. It analyses the communication between various society members and introduces the concept of “significant others,” which means people who have a considerable influence on the society member that is exploring (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2019, p. 12). Thus, social theories are tools to analyze society and its tensions, which allows for predicting its future development, and various theories are used for multiple purposes.
Conflict Theory
This theory views the world from a rather grim perspective: from its point of view, society is built based on conflicts between various social groups. The mainly used conflict is between poor and rich society members or, more broadly, between those who have power and those who have not (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2019). There are other conflicts, too: racial or national minorities form social groups, which lead to tensions with the majority due to a lack of communication and mutual understanding. Social development, in that way, is connected with resolving those conflicts, and the desire to do this is the main driving force of society. Conflict theory is an example of macro-level theory, similar to the functionalist theory: it describes society as a whole, complex mechanism, rather than focusing on each member. Its subject is social tensions between various social groups and the forces that create those tensions. As technology is one of those forces, conflict theory is well-fit to explore the impact of technology on society.
Sociological Issue: Technology
Technology is a broad term that refers to using various machines and connections between them to solve problems, make work, and proceed with information. There are various motivations for producing them: from the people’s curiosity to the necessity to make society more efficient and competitive (Coccia, 2019). Information technologies and the Internet makes people interconnected via social media and drastically increase access to information and its amount (Hunsinger et al., 2019). Information processing technologies and artificial intelligence enable the analysis of large amounts of data for various reasons. Medical technology usage by physicians increases life expectancy and improve people’s life in general (Nkurunziza et al., 2022). Computer games create a large field of leisure for everybody who has a PC or smartphone, enabling them to express emotions in virtual worlds of games or communicate via online games. (Khanmurzina et al., 2019). Technologies continue to develop, and new technologies, such as bio- and nanotechnologies, may even transform people’s lives, changing the human bodies and minds (Davis-Floyd, 2021). Thus, technology is a very influential element of society and has both positive and negative impacts.
From a conflict theory perspective, technology solves social tensions while creating many new ones. For example, the production of science and technology creates a significant inequality in society (Coccia, 2019). Sustainable technology development and policies ensure equal access to technologies, make society more stable and equal, increase the positive technology impact and decrease the negative one (Cancino et al., 2018). To explore its negative influences and how they may be solved, one first needs to elucidate motivation to produce technology, analyze examples of them, and then explore conflicts caused by them.
Motivations to Produce Technology
From a sociological perspective, personal choices and social forces motivate people and societies to develop science and produce technology. Personal choices are based on people’s inherent curiosity and the desire to increase the efficiency of their work, allowing them to make more goods with lesser effort (Coccia, 2019). People love to explore the world, and it creates scientific development on the scale of the whole society. Then, other people apply the results of that development and develop technologies, improving people’s lives and making money. Despite this improvement, technology growth also increases inequality, as not all people may afford technology usage. An example of social forces is the necessity to stay competitive compared to other societies; this is seen in the competition between nations and states (Coccia, 2019). This competition increases tensions between countries and communities, leading to broken relationships, closed borders, and even wars. Thus, technology usage, while improving society’s life and fulfilling its goals, creates many new conflicts in society and, in addition, increases inequality between its social groups.
Examples of Technology Impacts on Society
Social networks and media are one of the most socially influential fields of technology: they change the way people communicate and, thus, change their whole lifestyle. They are based on the Internet and serve a simple purpose: to exchange and share information; yet, their influence is considerable (Hunsinger et al., 2019). YouTube, for example, allows people to find helpful information, from home cooking recipes to medical advice. Facebook helps to stay connected with others, especially close friends or relatives. Data analysis technologies are another influential field, as it enables analyzing large amounts of various data.
Computer games are another important topic: being a technological advance, they have become increasingly popular in society, influencing how people spend their free time. Many people, especially youth, used to play computer games often, spending much time on that (Khanmurzina et al., 2019). There are both positive and negative outcomes for this from both personal and social perspectives. While people are resting in the virtual world and feel better after the play, they may become addicted, which will break their mental health and may ruin their lives.
Medical technologies are a broad field: from pharmacology, which creates new drugs, to machines used in medicine for procedures such as MRI or patient data analysis. As mentioned, data analysis is a significant technology field that enables proceeding with various data: in this case, those are patient data (Hunsinger et al., 2019). Other examples are computer vision, which allows doctors to retrieve information from imaging results using artificial intelligence (Nkurunziza et al., 2022). The outcome of medical technology usage is a drastic increase in life expectancy and quality; however, they increase social tensions, too, which will be discussed in the next paragraph.
Modern technological advances, such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence, can be united into one category: they are still developing but can potentially change the whole human life. For example, the combination of bio- and nanotechnologies allows the modification of the human body, greatly enhancing its abilities (Davis-Floyd, 2021). It may convert ordinary humans into more advanced specie: “techno-sapiens,” as the book Robbie Davis-Floyd called: their bodies are enhanced by technologies and, thus, they are stronger and more intelligent than unenhanced people. While the usage of medical technologies significantly improves and prolongs people’s lives, those new technologies may even change human biology.
Technology, Internal, and External Conflicts
Applying conflict theory to those technologies’ implementations, one may see that they create new conflict and tensions in society. First, to use technologies, one needs money, while they are unequally distributed among the society members (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2019). There is a lot of money invested in medical technologies, for example, and thus, to obtain qualified medical help, one needs to pay quite a large sum of money (Nkurunziza et al., 2022). This means that rich people may live much longer than poor ones, thus having even more power in their hands. When considering modern technologies, such as body enhancement, the division may become even larger: people who may afford it will increase their power multiple times (Davis-Floyd, 2021). In that way, society becomes more divided and unequal due to the spread of technologies that influence the human body and abilities; this may lead to social tensions and, eventually, crises.
While not dangerous, computer games may lead to addiction when a person spends many hours per day in games and lose contact with reality. Despite that, games are relaxing virtual worlds where players may express their emotions, and if games are online, they become a good place for socialization, as well (Khanmurzina et al., 2019). Thus, computer games may benefit society if people are taught how to behave with them from childhood.
Social media, computer games, and other Internet- and computer-based technologies lead to tensions in society, too. Social media make the world interconnected: that means the information will spread faster and, thus, consequences will become harder (Hunsinger et al., 2019). This enables people to be connected even being on different sides of the planet, which is a positive impact. Despite that, there are negative impacts, too: social platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter, may be used for spreading information that destabilizes society, such as propaganda or hate speeches. As technology itself increases tensions between various classes of society and various nations, social media’s impacts strengthen those tensions (Coccia, 2019). In addition, people with more power have more access to information, too, and they may use this information, including personal data, for their own purposes.
Thus, the outcome of such tensions is various conflicts inside the society and between different cultures. For example, the will to power may be considered one of the motivations for society to develop science and technologies (Coccia, 2019). Thus, technologies stimulate international conflicts and make them more large-scale and, therefore, more dangerous. Sustainable growth means implementing green technologies and progressive policies that remove inequality and improve the situation (Cancino et al., 2018). By providing equal access to technological advanced for all people, states and societies will make themselves happier, more stable, and prosperous.
Summary and Conclusion
Technology, while being one of the largest sources of human prosperity, is also a significant source of social tensions. Technology impacts society’s life in various ways: changing the lifestyle of its member, providing new ways to work, play, communicate, and even reproduce. From the conflict theory’s perspective, it increases tensions between various social groups by increasing inequalities: some groups of people have better access to them than others. Examples are unequal access to information and medical care that increase the power of the wealthy classes and decrease the influence of the poor and middle classes. In addition, social media enables to spread of information quicker, including destabilizing information, and technological advances make conflicts larger and deadlier. Therefore, conflicts between various social groups become sharper, increasing the risk of crises and even wars. To improve the situation, policies that ensure equal access to technologies may be used. It will reduce social stratification and allow everyone to improve their life and work using technology.
References
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