Sociotechnology (short for "social technology") is the study of processes on the intersection of

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soc ...

and

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scien ...

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/ref> Vojinović and Abbott define it as "the study of processes in which the social and the technical are indivisibly combined". Sociotechnology is an important part of socio-technical design, which is defined as "designing things that participate in complex systems that have both social and technical aspects". The term has been attributed to

Mario Bunge Mario Augusto Bunge (; ; September 21, 1919 – February 24, 2020) was an Argentine-Canadian philosopher and physicist. His philosophical writings combined scientific realism, systemism, materialism, emergentism, and other principles. He was ...

. He defines it as a grouping of social engineering and

management science Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...

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/ref> He sees it thus as a form of technology, distinguished from other branches of it such as

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology syste ...

and general technology. Its goal is to help engineer sociosystems and evaluate their performance, while making use of

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of s ...

research. In short, sociotechnology can be seen as the creation, modification and maintenance of social systems. Writing on sociotechnical change, Bijker wrote: "Society is not determined by technology, nor is technology determined by society. Both emerge as two sides of the sociotechnical coin." Technology is the sum of ways in which social groups construct the material objects of their civilizations. The things made are socially constructed just as much as technically constructed. The merging of these two things, construction and insight, is sociotechnology. "For example, we typically build a bridge when there’s some expectation that people need to get from Point A to Point B, and there’s something they need to bypass along the way (e.g. a river, a canyon, another road). Failure to consider the social factors as well as the technical factors could lead to a "bridge to nowhere" – and we all know at least one person who's had a problem with those".

Business

Business use "richness and reach". The richness and reach strategy has evolved with technology. Richness is the ability to understand the information being passed; for example, calling someone is less rich than face to face contact. Reach is the number of people who exchange the information. In the past it was easier to complete richness and reach, but now with new technologies like video chatting, it is easier for business to do fulfill both richness and reach. Positive economics is the study of existing (or historical) means of exchange- a social science such as sociology, history, and political sciences. Normative economics is the social technology because it attempts to create different kinds of economic arrangements.

Community and technology

Accelerating growth of technology is a major problem and cause of destabilization of a communicational world.

Paul Virilio Paul Virilio (; 4 January 1932 – 10 September 2018) was a French cultural theorist, urbanist, architect and aesthetic philosopher. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with dive ...

believes that the "real" is being mistaken by virtual and the virtual world destroys physical presence.

Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his ...

wrote about the extension of human senses and the nervous system into the world through electronic media. Essentially he believes that the mind, the self, and consciousness are made from already created technology, media, and language as opposed to create naturally like those who made technology, media, and language. The image of one's self becomes aware of itself in a world of technology. Consciousness and desire become less individualistic and turns into more already constituted social forms. The response to how someone feels something, what it means, and how it feels (for example feeling "attached" to someone after losing your virginity to them) is already set up through media communication (show, music, movies, articles). People will anticipate that they will be attached because of what they already know about it, so when it happens they do feel attached because that is how they were programmed to feel. People have turned to technology to create their "self" and determine how they feel and act. The conscious mind does not move into a world-as-other mindset but into an already constituted world. Lewis Mumford believed the world of relying on technology began with early human experiments in industrialization including coal mines because coal and iron built and powered industrialization. It has come to the point where communication is relied on technology. Conversation turned into talking through a machine (texting, phone calls, social media). The difference between the past and present technology is the extent of social binding. The more social forces it binds together the more powerful the technology is. For example, the attack on the World Trade Center as opposed to the attack of Pearl Harbor. It took a year to see the film of the attack on the American battleships. Because of this, people were more unaware and it was less of a big deal than what 9-11 was. During the terrorist attack in 2001, everything was broadcast in the moment. People were seeing the destruction with their own eyes in the moment, causing more ridicule and passion for the situation.

Robots replacing people

Furbie and Tamagotchi are electronic toys made for children that make noises and demand for care. These toys caused children to form a companionship with robots instead of human beings. Paro is a robotic baby seal that was created in Japan to perform therapeutic functions. Paro had positive psychological results for those in nursing homes. A woman constantly argued with her son and turned to the Paro for comfort and confided in the Paro instead of fixing things with her son. Society has turned to demanding more intimacy from sociable robots then from each other. People that use the robots for comfort feel like they are being comforted by someone even though they are actually alone. These robotic characters cause people to have a relationship with technology while avoiding the trouble of human interaction.

Social technology

Science and technology are big contributions to the economic development, but can also lead to negative side effects as it evolves. For example, people care more about materialistic things than the negative influences they have created in human morals and education. For example, it is more important for people to know words to songs than to remember things for their test. There are other problems due to the development of new technologies such as the conservation of the environment because there is a demand for more products which leads to more destruction of environment to build more to sell from. Many social problems have appeared in society and cannot seem to be solved by natural science and technology alone. It requires the need for social sciences as well. Social technology is the strategy used to help solve the wrong behaviors in the world that are caused by social problems like how to solve the issue of people being invested in materialistic goods more than morals, so that they economy can still continue to grow, and society can be a better place.

Organizational theory Organizational theory refers to the set of interrelated concepts that involve the sociological study of the structures and operations of formal social organizations. Organizational theory also attempts to explain how interrelated units of organiz ...

borrows from sociotechnology through its use of

sociotechnical systems Sociotechnical systems (STS) in organizational development is an approach to complex organizational work design that recognizes the interaction between people and technology in workplaces. The term also refer to coherent systems of human relat ...

, a subset of the concept of sociotechnology.

Business

Community and technology

Robots replacing people

Social technology

See also

References

Further reading