Society and Technology - Essay Example

1. In their New York Times opinion piece, “How Technology Wrecks the Middle economists David Autour and David Dorn explain that computerization has caused income inequality by automating traditionally middle-income jobs:… Computers excel at “routine” tasks: organizing, storing, retrieving and manipulating information, or executing exactly defined physical movements in production processes. These tasks are most pervasive in middle-skill jobs like bookkeeping, clerical work and repetitive production and quality-assurance jobs.

… while simultaneously causing the expansion of both high- and low-income jobs:Logically, computerization has reduced the demand for these jobs, but it has boosted demand for workers who perform “nonroutine” tasks that complement the automated activities. Those tasks happen to lie on opposite ends of the occupational skill distribution.At one end are so-called abstract tasks that require problem-solving, intuition, persuasion and creativity. These tasks are characteristic of professional, managerial, technical and creative occupations, like law, medicine, science, engineering, advertising and design.

People in these jobs typically have high levels of education and analytical capability, and they benefit from computers that facilitate the transmission, organization and processing of information.On the other end are so-called manual tasks, which require situational adaptability, visual and language recognition, and in-person interaction. Preparing a meal, driving a truck through city traffic or cleaning a hotel room present mind-bogglingly complex challenges for computers. But they are straightforward for humans, requiring primarily innate abilities like dexterity, sightedness and language recognition, as well as modest training.

These workers can’t be replaced by robots, but their skills are not scarce, so they usually make low wages.Tali Kristal (“The Capitalist Machine: Computerization, Workers’ Power, and the Decline in Labor’s Share within U.S. Industries”) has hired you to ghost-write her blog, where she responds to opinion pieces like this that appear in the media. In 250 total words or less combined (use a word count feature to make sure you do not go over), summarize whether you-as-Kristal (a) would largely be in agreement with Autour & Dorn’s explanation for inequality, and (b) why or why not.

Essentially, technology is meant to ease the production process and reduce the time spent by employees in performing routine jobs. Most routines have been automated, thereby eliminating the number of workers in that section (Autor & Dorn, 2013). The most significant question is what do the employees and employers earn? Is the disparity in income between employers and employees brought about by technology, since in general the employers earn more than the employee. The employers seek to improve productivity by creative innovations that will ensure a high quality product.

Employees, on the other hand want more working hours or more money per hour. The main explanations for income inequalities between the employers and employees is the nature of technology. This is because it automizes middle class jobs that offered more pay and leaves low income or professional jobs. Since most employees can offer those small jobs such as sales and services they get very little pay thus, low income. Most employers are in the professional jobs that have a very high pay, technology enhances their productivity thus increases their income.

This, inherently, causes significant disparities in income between these two groups. Other reasons are that technology does not account for social relation within and organization and that it is biased between those with skills and knowledge and those that lack the skills and knowledge. It is clear that computerization has an impact on income disparity, but this is its effect is reduction of unionization that greatly accounts for collective income spread throughout the economy.#2. Social integration—the incorporation of excluded populations fully into broader society—is always a concern for social scientists.

In 250 total words or less combined, summarize the key differences there are in patterns of brokerage of romantic couplings between the family and the World Wide Web/Internet and explain the implications of these differences for the matter of social integration.Social integration is key to ensure inclusion of marginalized population in the society. The internet has become pivotal to societal integration in the areas of brokerage for a romantic partner. It has replaced key brokers such as friends, family, churches among others.

The main differences in the patterns of brokerage of romantic coupling between the family and the internet and their implications shed light in this area. Some of them are that internet has displaced the family as an institution for relationship brokers. This means that most people will meet their partners online unlike traditional ways where partners were met within the social circles of the family. This in turn changes the traditional ways of romance will be replaced by the internet. Another key difference with this type of coupling is internet fails to reinforce hemophilia, as much as family institutions.

This implies that more internet relationships will be within partners of different localities, race, religion, or even culture. The efficiency of the internet as a broker is higher than that of the family circle in finding a partner, especially for individuals in the society who are not likely to get a romantic partner in their social circles. The internet provides a higher probability of finding a romantic partner than the family circles. This is advantageous for people who has internet in their homes This meant that with the internet the number of individuals who lack partners will increasingly reduce as a more adult population get partners online.#3. Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) frequently lead to predictions that distance will soon become socially irrelevant.

In 250 total words or less combined, summarize evidence that shows that geographic space still matters with respect to (a) the organization of work in the global information technology industry itself; and (b) communication between Americans and members of their core “discussion” networks.Development of ICT is continually developing closeness of distance and soon distance will be irrelevant because of the movement of information. But, because of how data is organized in the global information of technology on its own can cause distance to develop.

This is because information collection points are too few and most websites are not visited and links to all websites are not linked. Social sites such as twitter, Facebook, Tumblr., instagram, Linkedin, and g+ are sources of information and if they serve as links to information sources. If a website does contain links to such website and have many users connecting to it through such social sites then it becomes difficult to be heard on connect to many people. A technological distance develops between individual of different political orientations, especially blogs that are democratic oriented and republican oriented.

The views of individual get distance between such groups and forums cannot interact and thus vital data cannot be communicated to all. Communication tends to flow through closely connected cores, but when the cores are not connected information is lost. The industry of ICT is organized in such a way that there are many websites, but all must be connected through links and only a few websites contains most of the links and others contains very few and almost no links. An example of ICT communication structure the American political landscape, whereby websites within democratic alignment are closely linked and websites with republican alignment are densely linked among themselves.

The other is that the individual is away from their core networks such as family and friends as they get locked in the world of internet. They play, walk, even practically live alone physically.#4. A major theme of this part of the course, and of Questions #2 and #3 above, is that the Internet is an important communications technology in society today. In 250 words or less, explain why Abbate’s story (Inventing the Internet) of the development of the ARPANET indicates why it would have been difficult to predict the social impact of a computer network on the way people communicate in society.

It developed through an unusual interest between the civilians and the military, it was solely developed for military use. It was originally developed as a calculating device. In its beginning it was an expensive, scarce and cumbersome to think of a computer as a communication tool. It was extremely challenging to transfer data let alone share software from one use to another. A computer user who needed to use a distant computer found it easier to fly to the location of the computer. To transfer data from one computer to another one had to use large magnetic tapes form one computer to another.

Communication through modem, which were then invented, was difficult, especially if one wanted to connect two machines. The process was difficult with a lot of errors. The development of the internet was rather chaotic, but has now developed into a vast dependable communication system. The challenges it faced could not predict that the internet could be what it is today. Luckily everything must go through a process of filtering, and synthesis to form a desirable shape. Thus, the social impact of the internet and its ability to enhance communication across the globe shows how its difficulties shaped it to bring a change to the society.

ReferencesAutor, D. H., & Dorn, D. (2013, August 24). How Technology Wrecks the Middle Class. Retrieved April 14, 2014, from The New York Times: Opinionator: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/how-technology-wrecks-the-middle-class/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&Avgerou Chrisanthi and McGrath Kathy Power, Rationality, and the Art of Living Through Socio-Technical Change. New York: Cengage Learning. 2007, PrintGeels Florence. Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multilevel perspective and a case-study. London. Wiley-Blackwell.

2002 Print.