Mei Quoran. Essay Example

The word 'technology' possesses different meanings based on the area of application and the persons involved. However, a single, vivid, and crosscutting fact are evident; that technology involves the use of theoretical philosophies and scientific knowledge coupled with the available tools and sources of power to control the human environment. The view of such undertakings includes boosting productivity quantity while minimizing the time spent and eventually making human life easier. As a result, the evolution of technology has been a great issue of inquiry among scholars, resulting in the emergence of different theories. Similar to the definition of the word 'technology' as outlined earlier, the theories agree on the fact that satisfaction of the ever-dynamic human needs acts as the key driver to the technological innovations. Such a continuous cycle helps in the development of alternative solutions that work more efficiently as compared to earlier versions prompting their spread and adoption by many people. Therefore, the paper is premised on a comparison of the theories of the evolution of technology authored by Alvin Toffler, Leslie White, and Gerhard Lenski.

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To begin with, the conspicuous futurist Alvin Toffler introduces the theory of waves to explain the changes experienced by human beings in their social and economic spheres of life. In theory, Toffler believes that human being's technological advancement has undergone two critical stages and is now taking shape for the third wave that will be heavily dependent on knowledge (Zakaria & Alyati, 2012). He notes that having moved from the Agrarian revolution characterized by hunter-gatherer culture and industrial dispensations, the world's economy and societies will be driven by the prudent application of knowledge and technology to boost the efficiency of the economy that is fast shifting towards service provision in the third dispensation. Further, these developments need to serve a highly enlightened society that relies on real-time and efficient communication systems for the exchange of information. As such, Toffler argues that information and knowledge and their application in the creation of technological solutions are likely to be future bargaining powers in all spheres of human life, including politics and economy. Although some have endorsed the use of this theory to predict the state of future technologies based on the current ones, others have expressed reservations based on the naive judgment, they claim that the theory presents.

Secondly, Gerhard Lenski presents technology as the aspect that defines the social and related cultural changes exhibited by human societies. He adopts the basic and widely accepted definition of technology as the information that can be applied to transform the easily available resources to valuable products aimed at satisfying the wants of the people. Therefore, as presented by Alvin Toffler's theory, Lenski's theory on the evolution of technology also views information as a crucial aspect in the technological change hence the more information the members of a society have access to, the more expedited the rate of technological evolution that can be achieved. Further, Lenski views the social survival of various societies as a function of the level of information they hold and hence the technological change that they are capable of driving (Lenski, 2013). As a result, the societies wielding a lot of information from scientific research such as the Western countries have been able to evolve technologically hence occupying a superior position as compared to the developing countries.

Thirdly, the technological theory by Leslie White connects the cultural revolution of the world's communities to technological advancement. The theory holds that the culture of human beings at any particular point in time can never be determined by biological or ecological factors but is dependent on the level of technology that the society embraces. As such, technology is a component of human culture in its right, as well as philosophy and sociology (White, 2016). Just as Lenski's theory, Leslie's school of thought concerning technological evolution holds that technological advancements result from the fact that human beings are ever in pursuit of the solution to various social, economic, and political changes to enhance their survival in a world that is becoming continuously competitive. The changes that realized in the process help change the way humans do things hence their culture in its entirety. Ultimately, according to White, all changes in the culture of given societies are inspired by the desire of the people to solve their problems using technology.

Conclusion

In summary, technology has been portrayed as the key solution to the problems that affect human beings in various spheres of life. As such, humans have been making use over the generations to better their way of doing things, only to end up in an entirely distinct cultural dispensation. Even as need for improvement is always constant across the board, the theories have attempted to explain the difference in the level of technological evolution among various world societies. In this regard, information and knowledge, and how their free flow and acquisition is possible in given societies to have been cited as the main determinants. Therefore, various societies should invest heavily in the acquisition of new information and knowledge through research to see upward growth in the level of technological evolution.

References

Lenski, G. E. (2013). Power and privilege: A theory of social stratification. UNC Press Books. Retrieved from http://people.uvawise.edu/pww8y/Supplement/STSup/Lenski%20PowerPriv%201984/01PwrPriv%20Lenski%20ProbWhoGetsWhatWhy.pdf

White, L. A. (2016). The evolution of culture: the development of civilization to the fall of Rome. Routledge. Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/5286506/Metzner_2001_White_-_The_Evolution_of_Culture_-_The_Development_of_Civilization_to_the_Fall_of_Rome.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DLeslie_A._White_-_The_Evolution_of_Cultu.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20191218%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20191218T175320Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=596b87ef7324772fd94954e4b90312a8a4532c56c2d44bd01af2b26afe0f27d2

Zakaria, W., & Alyati, W. F. (2012). Alvin Toffler: Knowledge Technology and Change in Future Society. International Journal of Islamic Thought, 1, 54-61. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.301.1144&rep=rep1&type=pdf