Mutual Shaping of Society and Technology; Historical Typewriter Case Study

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Electrical and Robotics Engineering, Shahroud University, Shahrood, Iran

2 Department of Medical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, shahrood university of technology. Shahrood. Iran

3 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Philosophy and science, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

10.30465/ps.2020.5140

Abstract

Society is the origin of technology and its development. On the other hand, technology has special social effects. Generally, the relationship between society and technology is mutual. Awareness of this relationship is necessary for engineering design. Nonetheless, due attention is not paid to this issue in textbooks and teaching procedures. In this paper, the mutual relationship between society and technology is concretely delineated with the typewriter's historical case study. Sometimes one agent (society or technology) affects another, changes it and then gets affected itself by the resulting change. Also, the effects are not limited to change and an agent can prevent changes in another. In addition, it is observed that in the co-constructing path of agents, rationality is not the only criterion for technological development and is not justifying the phenomena. For example, optimization of technology can be stopped or deviated by society or social agents.

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