Technophobes May be Right After All
Those who dispute the claim of universal benefits from new information and communications
technologies are often called technophobes, but the evidence shows they may
be right after all, says a Penn State researcher. The prevailing view that the
more technology we have, the better off we are, just isn’t borne out by the
evidence, says Steven Sawyer, associate professor of information science and
technology. "It’s like claiming that owning a personal digital assistant
will automatically make you more organized." Furthermore, the notion that
information science and technology is going to change your job for the better–so
you should get with the program–also doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Sawyer and
a colleague reviewed the literature on the relationships between the technologies
and the larger social context in which they exist that appeared this month in
the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, from the American Society
for Information Sciences and Technology. For the full story by Barbara Hale,
