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How Technology Is Changing Our Lives 483

analyze information. These new technologies, as they are called, extend our abilities
beyond anything known in human history. We can now do what has never been
done before: transplant organs, communicate almost instantaneously anywhere on
the globe, probe space, and travel vast distances quickly. And, as in our opening
vignette, we can produce, store, retrieve, and analyze vast amounts of information,
even if we must penetrate thick jungles to do so.
The Sociological Significance of Technology

Our journey to the future is going to have so many twists and turns that no one knows what Watch on MySocLab
our lives will be like. It is intriguing, however, to try to peer over the edge of the present to Video: ABC Nightline: Big Brother
catch a glimpse of that future. But because this text is about sociology, we cannot lose sight
of the sociological significance of technology—how it changes our way of life. When a technol-
ogy is introduced into a society, it forces other parts of society to give way. In fact, new tech-
nologies can reshape society. Let’s look at four ways that technology changes social life.
Changes in Production. Technology changes how people organize themselves. In
Chapter 5, we discussed how, before machine technology was developed, most people worked
at home; the new power-driven machinery required them to leave their families and go to
a place called a factory. In the first factories, each worker still made an entire item. Then it
was discovered that production increased if each worker performed only a specific task. One
worker would hammer on a single part, or turn a certain number of bolts; then someone else
would go to the item and do some other repetitive task on it; a third person would then take
over; and so on. Henry Ford built on this innovation by developing the assembly line: Instead
of workers moving to the parts, machines moved the parts to the workers. In addition, the
parts were made interchangeable and easy to attach (McKinlay and Wilson 2012).
Changes in Worker–Owner Relations. Technology also spurs ideology. Karl Marx
noted that workers who performed repetitive tasks on just a small part of a product did
not feel connected to the finished product. No longer did they think of the product as
“theirs.” As Marx put it, workers had become alienated from the product of their labor,
an alienation that breeds dissatisfaction and unrest.
Marx stressed that before factories came on the scene, workers owned their tools.
This made them independent. If workers didn’t like something, they would pack up
their hammers and saws and leave. They would build a wagon or make a table for some-
one else. The factory brought fundamental change: There, the capitalists owned the
tools and machinery. This ownership transferred power to the capitalists, who used it to
extract every ounce of sweat and blood they could. The workers had to submit, since
desperate, unemployed workers were lined up, eager to take the place of anyone who
left. This exploitation, Marx believed, would bring on a workers’ revolution: One day,
deciding that they had had enough, workers would unite, violently take over the means
of production, and establish a workers’ state.
Changes in Ideology. The new technology that led to factories also led to a change
in ideology. As capitalists made huge profits, they developed the ideology that profits
were a moral, even spiritual, endeavor. Profits benefited society—and pleased God as
well. Followers of Marx, in turn, built ideologies in opposition to capitalism. In their
view, profit comes from the exploitation of workers, because workers are the true owners
of society’s resources and it is their labor that produces the profit.
Changes in Conspicuous Consumption. Just as ideology follows technology, so does
alienation Marx’s term for work-
conspicuous consumption. If technology is limited to clubbing animals, then animal
ers’ lack of connection to the
skins are valued. No doubt primitive men and women who wore the skins of some espe-
product of their labor; caused by
cially unusual or dangerous animal walked with their heads held high—while their neigh- workers being assigned repetitive
bors, wearing the same old sheepskins, looked on in envy. With technological change, tasks on a small part of a product—
Americans make certain that their clothing and accessories (sunglasses, handbags, and this leads to a sense of powerless-
watches) have trendy labels prominently displayed. They also proudly display their cars, ness and normlessness; others use
boats, and second homes. In short, while envy and pride may be basic to human nature, the term in the general sense of not
feeling a part of something
the particular material display depends on the state of technology.