As an anthropologist, are you concerned about the increasing automatization of society?

Question

Will the increasing automatization of society only lead humans to become helplessly dependant on machines and processes outside of their control and understanding, and unable to properly care for themselves should the processes fail?

Answer 1

do you think the era of mechanic dependence is yet to come?

i think we are already living in one and for sure it is a matter of concern to me. we no more interact with each other. we've becomes immensely dependant on machines that we can't even imagine a world without automacy.

Answer 2

I am not an anthropologist, but I play one on tv...joke!

The belief that I have about technology is that it is a passing phase. People will outgrow it...most people are not able to afford most of it anyways. This lifestyle will pass. Somethings will stay, but we won't need to have so many automatic things when we are not driven to be consumers.

Answer 3

I think it's just one more aspect affecting and changing society, so it's kind of exciting in a way.  It opens up questions about the different ways different people use technology, and whether/how their culture/traditions/norms are changed or replicated through the advent of technology.  Just because something reaches every country, does not mean it will be used or fit into life in a uniform way.  If a country suddenly becomes the center of production for something, for example, that has effects on its people's views of themselves and their country in relation to the world, not just on the global market.   Meanwhile, while America has shifted from production/industrial age to a more service-oriented age of consumption, that has had a major impact on society in terms of class, status, and how those things are identified and expressed.

Issues of globalization, sense of "place," and the spreading/blurring/mixing of different cultures are also implicated in this, since technology helps to quicken and enhance these things.

Answer 4

We´re so automatized that you need to ask this on the Internet and I answer it by using a computer.

Technology is neither good nor bad but if we don´t use it carefully we´ll end up  being absorbed by it.

Answer 5

We are pretty much writing our own doom by doing this, especially when it comes to tribal cultures. Certain cultures need to come about things on their own time, and industrialization definitely does cause great unrest and even highly damaging revitalization movements such as what occurred in the Middle East with Al Qaida.

The truth is that we need nonindustrialized countries desperately. We need the knowledge of how to do things without advanced technology. Imagine if New York were to have a giant blackout for 50 days. Some people would not  know how to start a fire, and many would be helpless when it comes to refrigeration.