How culture and technology collaborate
Technology applies what we know and takes the form of tools, processes, and products. While culture represents some combination of our values, desires, and beliefs. Does technology create culture? Or does innovation evolve from from it?
Technology creates culture, culture creates technology, and the two move unexpectedly. Like the chicken and egg, the tech and culture dance is circular, cyclical, and explicitly not causal. This dance shapes our experiences and—a lot of the time—work. Technology and culture collaborate to create the world we live in.
Culture repels technology
Socrates was charged with corrupting the youth and not believing in the right gods. The Socratic method was new knowledge that was applied as a more systematic way of questioning what we knew to be true. Before he changed the culture, the culture put him to death. Too much too soon, perhaps.
More recently (2014) Google Glass—or holographic information superimposed on the outside world—got a mixed reaction. One account, from someone wearing the device in a local San Francisco bar, details the interaction…
I got verbally and physically assaulted and robbed last night in the city, had things thrown at me because of some wanker Google Glass haters. (original article)
Not everyone likes technology imposed on them without permission. Maybe this was too narcissistic, and ungenerous. Onlookers may have felt that using the device was egotistical, taking the experience for themselves without a way to share it with others. Thoughts and comments ranging from, “Are you taking photos of me?” to “You are not one of us”.
For the folks challenged by the Socrates-types, the Mark Twain in white, there is this feeling of being removed from your comfort zone. Sometimes people just want things to stay the way they are.
Culture creates technology
Bells were created for religious ceremonies. Alphabets, clocks, and calendars arose from the need to communicate and keep track of culture. A pasta machine exists because people want spaghetti. Movies, music, and art shape technology. "Her" has changed the state of AI and voice assistants, "Minority Report" still influences user interfaces, and "The Matrix" serves as a reference for virtual reality.
Nicolas Cage fueled the remake of Gone in 60 Seconds, and suddenly 14 to 57-year-old males wanted a 1967 GT500. Chances are, you can recall a film that made you and your friends want something new.
Culture is art, fashion, design, music, entertainment, writing, spoken language, memes, religion, attitude toward customs and institutions, rituals, and food. Could it be the case that culture does not influence technology?
Technology shapes culture
In a McLuhan-like way, the technology itself—a mobile device, perhaps—is often the cultural takeaway. Cable television used to be the new tech. Maybe it was a radio, or a campfire before.
And now, it’s a mobile phone. It’s personal. Unsurprisingly our society is more individualistic than it was before. And then with social media, tech picked up the culture mirror and threw it off a cliff. Breaking culture into hundreds of pieces.
Technology—the invention, tool, or product—creates culture. The fire led to cooking food. Permanently changing our social structure and even shaping our species. The internet changed how we connected as a society, how information is stored, and how we communicate today. Does technology not shape our culture?
Technology and culture collaborate
Together, technology and culture shape our lived experience and worldview. We began with a chicken-and-egg conundrum: Which comes first, technology or culture? Sometimes technology takes the lead. The discovery of fire preceded and influenced human culture. Conversely, our beliefs can drive innovation, like in The Space Race.
Culture often criticizes technology, and rightly so. This criticism will incite tech’s next inventions. In turn, technology should recognize the importance of culture, as it cannot exist in a vacuum. Tech can respect without conforming to the existing cultural milieu. Culture lives in the present, unaware of what’s next, and tech projects into the future.
In the end, technology and culture move as if dancing. Each is waiting and following the other, in an endless rotation. Technology and culture collaborate.