Comparison of the Three Perspectives on Technological Evolution

Comparison of the Three Technological Evolution
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Comparison of the Three Technological Evolution
Technology has become difficult to describe or comprehend due to its ever-changing nature. Technology has evolved to a level that is beyond comprehension, and one can only hope not to be left behind or stranded by its evolution. Technology is referred to as applying scientific knowledge to solve industrial or daily human struggles. The evolution of technology refers to the changes technology has undergone, from the early primitive human tools to the more advanced machinery and technology today. The changes are clear but hard to pinpoint since it is ever-changing into a more complex but easier to use form. The paper aims to compare and contrast the view and perspective of technology according to Gerhard Lenski, Leslie White, and Alvin Toffler.
Gerhard Lenski was a micro sociologist who had a big consideration for technology being the key to human beings' survival. He argued that only society and generally humankind could advance through their understanding of technology. Lenski, therefore, coined the sociocultural perspective of viewing the technology, studying human behaviour and focusing on the social and cultural elements that make up a society (Lenski, 2016). He broke society into five different levels to help understand the technology. The first level comprised the hunters and gatherers; this society acquired their foods from hunting and gathering; the technology they used was spears, bows, and arrows (Lenski, 2016). Shortage of food due to overhunting led to the second society, the horticultural society. Society gained the knowledge of simple tools which help them cultivate food on a small scale. Population increase resulted from their immobility, leading to overstretching of the available food, which led to the gaining of new technology like land cultivation using animals and subsequently leading to the third level, the agrarian society. Society cultivated their food on a large scale and specialized in work. The next society was the industrial society which used advanced energy sources to power the machinery; the society led to the emergence of cities and more advanced ways of getting work done (Lenski, 2016). The last society mentioned by Gerhard was the post-industrial society that emerged after the information revolution. Computers took over from the machinery in the industrial society; the society is characterized with the living standard and the more advanced form of technology.
The second perspective is the Leslie white neo-evolutionist interested in the cultural view of technological advancements in society. He emphasized that culture was a crucial component and an integrated and dynamic system for technology development (White, 2016). He explains that energy exists in human beings and could be used for domesticating, planting and agricultural advancement leading to cultural evolution. He divided the culture into four aspects to help understand his technology evolution theory. The first is the ideological aspect of a culture: the beliefs the society follows, the customs and the moral values they bind to. The sociological aspects comprise the family, marriages and the econom...