Postive and Negative Impacts of Technology

It appears to be the time to initiate a blog for the Biblical Concourse since every day there are thoughts and developments which would benefit those pursuing their college studies in the home school mode or developing their own home university.

For example, I have been reading Neil Postman's Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (Knopf, 1992) and thinking how appropriate this book would be for every college student to read. It reinforces the fact that technology is not neutral but always has both a positive and negative impact on people.

Neutrality implies that the knowledge and structure of a subject is not influenced by religious belief, or that it should not be. Another way to state neutrality is to say that the subject would be the same whether God existed or not. The claim that a subject would be the same with or without the existence of God is an antichristian statement, because the Scriptures declare that God created and holds all things, which includes mathematics, together. …God, who created all things by Jesus Christ Ephesians 3:9 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Colossians 1:17

Here is a glimpse of what Mr. Postman writes regarding medical technology:

"Consider the case of cesarean sections. Close to one out of every four Americans is now born by C-section. Through modern technology, American doctors can deliver babies who would have died otherwise. As Dr. Laurence Horowitz notes in Taking Charge of Your Medical Fate, " ....the proper goal of C-sections is to improve the chances of babies at risk, and that goal has been achieved." But C-sections are a surgical procedure, and when they are done routinely as an elective option, there is considerable and unnecessary danger: the chances of a woman's dying during a C-section delivery are two to four times greater than during a normal vaginal delivery. In other words, C-sections can and do save the lives of babies at risk, but when they are done for other reasons - for example, for the convenience of the doctor or mother - they pose an unnecessary threat to health, and even life.

There are thousands, perhaps millions of example of how technologies have had both positive and negative impacts on society. Seems like the Christian could benefit from noticing that technology is not neutral and therefore looking to avoid the negative impacts.